


Cybersun

by Ulysses_Quanta



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Cybernetics, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-07-16 00:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16074599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ulysses_Quanta/pseuds/Ulysses_Quanta
Summary: Six months after the accident which maimed him, Elio Solaris arrives in Alola with his mother, ready to start a new life. But a chance encounter with a Pokémon in need of help leads to him being roped into an adventure spanning the islands of Alola and beyond. At least it's better than his old life, right? Contains SuMo and USUM spoilers.





	1. First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> The reason why I have such high amounts of kudos and hits is because I keep getting botted. That being said, I hope you enjoy the story!

**Chapter 1** **: First Meetings**

"Lea, I'll come back for you, I promise!" a honedge cried out as it was dragged away by a pair of cottonee.

"Gil!" a flabébe called out as she watched the honedge be dragged out of the meadow.

The cottonee pushed the honedge along the path to the meadow until they arrived on Route 3, where the duo promptly threw the honedge out onto the path and went back inside the meadow.

"Lea..." Gil whimpered. It turned to look around the path, trying to see if anyone could help him.

"No one?" Gil whispered. It turned around and donned a look of horror as a person spotted it, and began to pull a Poké Ball out of his bag. "No... please. Please! Tapu Koko! Please! Help me!" the honedge begged to the sky.

Gil's prayer was answered. A lightning bolt struck down from the sky and in front of it landed Tapu Koko, the deity of Melemele Island. The trainer backed up in fear of the deity.

"Why have you called for me, little one?" the Tapu asked the honedge.

"My name is Gilgamesh. I was visiting a friend and the ribombee she is betrothed to had me thrown out of the meadow because I did not approve of him! Please, you need to help me!" Gilgamesh begged the Tapu.

"It is not my place to interfere in the relations of Pokémon." Koko told Gilgamesh. As Gilgamesh looked away in sadness, an idea began to form in the Tapu's mind. A way of knocking out two pikipek with one Rock Throw.

"But there is a human who I believe may be of assistance. I wished to seek him out but you may be able to help me and yourself at the same time." the deity told the honedge.

"Anything! I'll do anything to help you if it means I can help Lea!"

"Of course. Come with me, little one." And with that, the Tapu wrapped it's claws around Gilgamesh and flew off into the sky, leaving behind a bewildered trainer.

...

On the Mahalo Trail, in a small corner tucked out of sight of most of the people who walked the path sat a young man. His brown hair hung messily around his head. He had a black tee on with shorts and shoes. By his side rested a bag with tools hanging out of it. A screwdriver was held in his left hand, which was pale as snow as his cloudy grey eyes focussed on screwing open a panel on his right hand's wrist. His right hand was made of metal, but had many servos working as joints. The silver painting reflected the light that shone through gaps in the leaves above him. He put the screwdriver down and tested his hand, moving each of the fingers to make sure everything was still connected after getting a nettle stuck in a servo in one of his fingers.

His name was Elio Solaris, and he had just moved to Alola from Kanto.

"That's what I get for going outside..." Elio mused to himself as he closed the panel and screwed it shut again before wiping the tools down with a cloth and putting the tools back in a compartment in his bag. Pulling a glove out of the same compartment, he gently slid it over his right hand until it had reached his elbow, completely covering up his cybernetic hand and forearm.

As one of the first few people in the world to be given a cybernetic limb so far, Elio had met his fair share of curious minds. His mother, Marida Solaris, had initally told her son not to hide his hand, to be proud of how he was different. But to avoid the never ending barrage of questions about why he had been given a cybernetic replacement instead of someone else in the world, he had learnt to hide it from the people of the world. While he did not know how the people of Alola would feel about cybernetics or him being part of the first wave of people getting them, he wasn't going to take the risk of having them see it and question him about it.

Having gotten privacy on the Trail while searching for a kahuna ("He looks just like a Kahuna!" Professor Kukui, the local pokémon professor, had told him as he sent him to look for the kahuna, as if Elio knew what one looked like), Elio had removed the glove and promptly gotten the nettle stuck in a servo in his index finger while looking at the flowers and attempting to pick one to get a better look at it.

It was another lesson for the seventeen year old Kantonian to learn.

Zipping up the compartment, Elio swung the bag up onto his back and crawled out of the little corner. Emerging back onto the trail, he soon figured out where he was going and began to climb the trail again.

...

Further up the trail, a mysterious lady's bag had begun to move about, forcing her to run forward to keep hold of it. However, just before she could get on the bridge, the occupant leaped out of the bag with a happy cry.

"No! Nebby, get back here!" She hissed at the creature, but it didn't pay her any mind. It flew along happily until it landed on the other side of the bridge, where it turned to the girl and waved to her before wandering on towards the Ruins of Conflict, leaving the girl in front of the bridge.

...

Elio soon emerged out of the Trail and onto a small cliff and stopped moving. In front of him stood a girl with blonde hair in a white dress.

"Hello?" Elio called. This got the girl's attention, as she turned around to face him, her green eyes looking at him in confusion and worry, her face the embodiment of fear.

"Ah..." the girl whimpered.

"What's wrong?" Elio asked her.

"Please, my Pokémon flew across the other side of Plank Bridge! It has no moves to defend itself with if it gets attacked! Please, I can't cross it, I really can't..." the girl trailed off, her eyes lowering in embarassment as her legs quaked in fear. Elio shrugged and internally rolled his eyes. He had only been here a day and he was already being asked for help by the locals. Mom had drilled it into his head that people would always need help, but a random stranger on his first day in Alola, when he was just supposed to be looking for someone? Just his luck.

On the other hand, if this lady was the kahuna and he refused to help her, that would put him in a bad spot to start with.

"Fear of heights is nothing to be embarrassed about. What is it called?" Elio asked her. She looked up at him, hope sparking in her eyes.

"N-Nebby. That's my name for it." she told him. He nodded and looked at the contraption connecting the two cliffsides. It was missing a lot of wooden panels and the ropes looked worn and frayed. He hoped it was still sturdy.

"Nebby. Okay. I need you to stay here, if I don't come back, then you'll need to send someone else to come find me." Elio took a step onto the bridge. The panels creaked, but they still held his weight.

"Please be careful." the lady told Elio. He nodded and began walking over to the other side.

...

Elio could easily understand now why the girl was afraid to cross. With how old it looked and how fast the rapids down below looked, one wrong step could easily result in him plummeting and being swept away.

"Don't think about that, Elio," he chided himself, forcing him to focus on getting over it. Thankfully, he was able to cross it quickly, and walked along the path ahead.

Rounding a corner, he quickly spotted a problem.

There was a weird, cloud looking creature next to what looked like a blade that was stuck in a rock next to what looked like the entrance to a shrine. The weird thing was looking at the blade with a distressed expression on it's face. As Elio got closer, he recognised what the blade actually was.

"A honedge? What's a honedge doing here?" Elio mused to himself. He walked over to it and crouched down by them. The honedge let out a few whimpering cries that sounded like metal scraping across metal as the space cloud looking thing turned to Elio, now with a pleading look on it's face.

"I'll get it free, don't worry." Elio told it. Removing the glove and storing it in his bag, Elio firmly grasped the handle ('Or is it its head?' Elio thought) with his right hand while placing a foot on the rock, ignoring that the honedge had just wrapped it's cloth around his forearm. With a grunt, Elio pulled it free from the rock and promptly tripped over onto his backside, the honedge floating away from his hand.

" _Thank you! I was stuck there for a while_!" The honedge told Elio.

"Don't mention it..." Elio muttered. Then his head snapped around to the honedge. "Wait, you can talk?"

" _Sort of. This is called telepathy. All of us honedge can use it, but we mainly use it as doublade use it to communicate with each other. The Tapu told me to use it to talk to whoever was able to pull me out of the stone_ ," the honedge explained.

"Ah." Elio had read somewhere that some ghosts were able to use telepathy like the Psychic type. He just didn't know honedge could. "Oh yeah, are you Nebby?" Elio asked the honedge.

" _No. My name is Gilgamesh, or Gil for short. The cosmog over there might be called Nebby."_ Gilgamesh explained.

"Cosmog?"

" _That's what it calls itself. I've heard rumours that trainers call Pokémon by different names to what the Pokémon's actual names are."_

Elio nodded. He turned to the creature Gilgamesh had mentioned.

"Is your name Nebby?" he asked it. It flapped its arms at him happily and let out a cheery cry.

" _Yes, that is what this Lillie person calls him_." Gil translated for Elio. Elio nodded.

"Come on, Nebby, or cosmog, or whatever you are called. That girl's worried about you," Elio told Nebby. Nebby pouted, but started floating towards the bridge.

"What about you?" Elio asked Gilgamesh as he clambered back to his feet.

" _Tapu Koko told me to accompany whoever pulled me out of that stone. They said they could help me._ " Gil explained.

"I see. Well, I'm not sure how I can help, but you are welcome to come back to Iki Town with me, if you wish." Elio told him. Gilgamesh nodded, and the two of them walked back towards the bridge after Nebby.

...

"Do you know how much danger you could've been in? You shouldn't be wandering off like that!" the girl scolded Nebby, who at least had the decency to look guilty for making her worry.

"Hey, it did help free a Pokémon who was trapped in a rock," Elio admitted as he stepped off the bridge next to the girl and Nebby. The girl sighed and turned to face the stranger who had helped her. Before either of them could say anything, the snapping of the bridge behind them drew their attention. Both of them watched, Lillie in horror, Elio with mild interest, as the bridge broke apart and collapsed into the rapids below.

"Could've sworn it looked sturdier," Elio commented.

"Well, Hala did mention he was trying to get the bridge replaced with a newer one. Maybe now he'll get his wish," the girl replied.

"So, who are you?" Elio asked the girl. The girl looked surprised at having forgotten to introduce herself.

"M-My name is Lillie. Thank you for bringing Nebby back to me." Lillie introduced herself. The gleam of silver caught her eye, and she found herself staring at Elio's hand.

" _So this is Nebby's trainer. Wait, why is she staring at your hand?_ " Gil asked Elio, who cursed internally and moved his hand behind his back away from Lillie's curious gaze.

"Cute name. Mine is Elio. The honedge here is called Gilgamesh." Elio introduced himself. Lillie's gaze shot up to look at his face, a faint tinge of pink on her cheeks. Elio tried to look as sincere as he felt, while also silently thanking the Gods that his attempt to deflect attention from his hand had worked.

"T-thank you." Lillie stammered out. Elio gave her a short smile as he reached into his bag to retrieve his glove. "Listen, you can't tell anyone about Nebby, okay? It's a secret." she begged him.

"I'll won't tell anyone. I promise," Elio told her as he pulled the glove over his arm. Lillie nodded and smiled at him.

"Thank you," she told him. Elio nodded and with that, he began walking down the trail.

"Wait!" Elio turned around to see Lillie walking over to him, a worried expression her face. "I-I'm sorry to be of even more trouble, but would you be able to walk me down to Iki Town? I'm worried that something will attack us." Elio nodded, earning a relieved smile off Lillie.

"Wait, where's Gilgamesh?" Elio asked. Just as he asked that, Gilgamesh came floating over to him, holding something.

" _I found this stone by the bridge. It's sparkly and warm. Any idea what this is?_ " he asked Elio. Elio took the stone off him. It was warm and sparkly, just like Gilgamesh said.

"I have no idea what this is. Lillie?" Elio asked the blonde next to him. She shook her head.

"I guess I'll have to ask the professor when we get back." Elio tucked the stone into his bag and began walking down the path towards Iki Town alongside Gilgamesh and Lillie.

In a bush next to where they had been stood , an intense pair of eyes observed the trio as they walked away from the cliff. Someone unexpected had found Gilgamesh. But its actions showed they at least were willing to help others. Even so, it would have to keep a close eye on the situation to ensure they didn't take advantage of the honedge.

With its gift stowed away safely in the stranger's bag, the creature wondered if he would be able to stand up to the trials ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: So here we go. Cybersun is a novelization of Sun, Moon and USUM which will follow USUM with the story using elements and events from Sun and Moon as well as changes to the story to provide a unique experience for the reader.
> 
> As you will have noticed, I have made a few major changes outright. The biggest one of all is that Elio has a cybernetic arm. My reasoning for this change is because of a theme I have running throughout the story.
> 
> Second of all is Gilgamesh. Gil is a product of an idea I've had for a while. He will play a significant role in the story alongside Elio.
> 
> I will state now, while the canon events in the story will take place, there will be some minor changes to how they take place, due to my writing style. If this is an issue, I apologise, but I'd advise people to stick around to see what they think before opting out.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please favourite and follow and leave a review telling me what you thought!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. I only own my OCs. This story is rated T due to mild swearing, violence and suggestive themes. Reader discretion is advised.


	2. Engaging in Festivities

**Chapter 2:** **Engaging in Festivities**

Elio was stood on the stage. Kneeling on one knee, he held his cybernetic hand out to the three pokémon who stood on the other end of the stage.

Rowlet, the Grass type, who was observing him with confused eyes.

Popplio, the Water type, who had a bored expression on its face.

Litten, the Fire type, who looked at Elio with interest at his unorthodox style and appearance.

It had been Elio's idea to do this. After reuniting with the professor and learning that Lillie was his assistant, he had been introduced to the kahuna of the island, Hala. Upon learning of how Elio had helped both Lillie and Gilgamesh, Hala had decided to give the boy a pokémon. Upon being introduced to the trio and when he realised that one of those three would become his first Pokémon, Elio had immediately refused to choose.

"What? Why?" Kukui had cried out.

"Because if one of these guys is to be my first pokémon here in Alola, I want them to choose me. This is their journey as well as mine. They should decide for themselves who goes with me," Elio had told the professor.

After a moment's silence, Hala had broken out into laughter. "I can see you like to consider how your pokémon feel. You will make a fine pokémon trainer!" the kahuna had said to him. Elio had looked down at the dirt beneath his feet, unsure how to respond to the kahuna's compliment.

When Elio had revealed his hand to the starters, it had caused a murmur in the people around the stage. He had resisted the instinct to hide it again. The starters needed to know what he really was. He didn't want them to work with him without knowing of his difference.

After an eternity, one stepped forward. Elio and the crowd watched the pokémon as it moved closer to him until it was inches away from his hand.

And the crowd let out the breath they had been holding as the litten nuzzled Elio's hand and allowed itself to be picked up by him. The boy's idea had worked.

"Well, it seems litten wishes to join you. Congratulations, young man," Hala told Elio as he returned the popplio and rowlet. "Have you considered a name?"

"That depends. Do you have a name?" Elio asked the litten, who let out a little cry.

" _He says he doesn't have a name. The big man never picked a name for him. Neither did his mother_ ," Gilgamesh explained as he floated over to Elio.

"You were never given a name? You poor thing." Elio cast a glare at Hala, but the kahuna's back was turned to Elio as he spoke to the professor about something.

"Hmm..." Elio thought to himself. Then he had an idea. "Little one, do you have a goal in mind?" Elio asked the litten, who let out series of purrs.

" _He says he wants to become an very powerful incineroar. He believes he would be strong enough to beat anyone then!_ " Gilgamesh told Elio, who looked at litten in confusion.

"An incineroar? What's an incineroar?" Elio looked around for the professor, but he and Hala were still deep in discussion. "Lillie, was it? Do you know what an incineroar is?" Elio asked the professor's assistant, who looked startled at being addressed.

"Erm, yes. They are the final evolved form of litten. They have a violent, selfish disposition. If it's not in the mood to listen, it will ignore its trainer's orders with complete nonchalance. Also, although it's rough mannered and egotistical, it finds beating down unworthy opponents boring. It gets motivated for stronger opponents." Lillie explained, taking a gasp of air after explaining that. Elio flashed a quick smile in thanks, and looked at the litten in his arms, who was looking back at him in curiousity.

"Thank you Lillie. Little one, while I don't know how long it'll take, or how you evolve, I promise I'll do my best to help you become a powerful incineroar. Now, about your name. How does Aleister sound?" Elio asked him. The litten let out another happy cry.

" _He loves it, he said._ " Gilgamesh told Elio.

"Aleister it is. Welcome aboard the team, Aleister!" Elio told the litten. Aleister let out a happy cry at finally getting a name.

"Aleister? That's a wonderful name. It's nice to meet you, Aleister!" Lillie greeted the cat as she walked over to Elio. Aleister let out a friendly yowl.

" _He says it's nice to meet you too!_ " Gilgamesh said.

"Aleister said it's nice to meet you too." Elio told Lillie, who did a double take.

"Wait, you can understand pokémon?" Lillie asked Elio. He shook his head.

"No. Gil can use telepathy and translated for me," Elio explained. Behind him, Gilgamesh nodded.

"Oh." Lillie lowered her eyes. "S-sorry, that was a bit silly of me to assume."

"It's fine. I thought it could talk normally too when I first heard it." Elio reassured her. Lillie looked up and smiled briefly before spotting something out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh, you!" And with that, Lillie walked off after Nebby, who had snuck out of her bag.

"Now, you mentioned you had a problem?" Elio asked Gilgamesh as he turned to him.

" _Yes. You see, I have a close friend who lives in the Melemele Meadow. I was visiting her recently and I met the ribombee she has been betrothed to,_ " Gilgamesh explained.

"Pokémon get married?" Elio asked Gilgamesh, who nodded.

" _In this case, it's more of a political marriage. But I knew this guy from childhood. He's nothing more than a power hungry idiot. When I protested against it he had me thrown out of the meadow and that's how I met you,_ " Gilgamesh told him.

"So what do you want to do?" Elio asked him. Gil closed his eye for a moment, thinking of what to do next. He then opened his eye and looked at Elio with determination.

" _I need to go back there. I need to see her, to find out what she wants. If she truly wishes to marry that twit I will not oppose it, but if she doesn't, I will do everything I can to help her get out of it._ " Elio nodded.

" _But I need your help. Alone, I stand no chance of getting near her. But with a pokémon trainer there, maybe he will be willing to hold off long enough to let me talk to her,_ " Gil said.

"I'll do what I can," Elio told the honedge, who started hopping around in joy.

" _Thank you!_ "

"Having accepted one another, you'll surely be friends for life!" Kukui called out to Elio as he walked up to him.

"That's it, Elio! Now that you've got a pokémon, you're a real pokémon trainer, yeah! And here's a lovely gift from me to help make it special, cousin." And with that, Kukui handed Elio a strange device.

"Professor, what is this?" Elio asked him as he took hold of it, Aleister hopping down from his arms to talk to Gilgamesh.

"That is a Pokédex! A Pokédex is a real high-tech kinda tool, yeah, that can automatically record facts about any pokémon that you meet. Your new partner litten is already registered, oh yeah, so check it out!" Kukui told Elio. The young man powered up his Pokédex and flicked to litten's entry.

"Litten, the fire cat pokémon. While grooming itself, it builds up fur inside its stomach. It sets the fur alight and spews fiery attacks, which change based on how it coughs. This litten is male and has the moves Scratch, Growl and Ember," Elio read out. He moved the Pokédex to scan Gilgamesh. "Error, no data found. What?" he asked the machine.

"Aw, some pokémon aren't native to Alola and because of that, the Pokédex won't have entries for them. Honedge typically can't be found in the wild unless you use a special tool, so count yourself lucky you have one, oh yeah!" Kukui told Elio, who nodded. "And this is a Trainer Passport that I had put together for you." Kukui pulled out a little book and gave it to Elio, who put it in his bag. "Now why don't you go introduce your new friend to your mom, Elio?" And with that, Elio walked away from Kukui towards the steps with Aleister and Gilgamesh in tow.

"Hmm... It feels like there should be someone else here, oh yeah..." Kukui murmured to himself, before a gleam from Elio's bag caught his attention. "Elio!" he yelled, catching the boy's attention. "Mind showing me what you got shining in your bag?" he asked the boy, who unslung his bag and opened a compartment, pulling out a glimmering stone.

"Oh, this thing? I'm not sure what it is..." Elio trailed off as he brought it over to the professor, who took it off the boy and inspected it.

"Hala, look at this. Elio had it on him," Kukui told the kahuna who had wandered over to Kukui along with Lillie after helping her catch Nebby.

"Interesting... Elio, where did you find this?" Hala asked the boy.

"Gil found it by the bridge." Elio shrugged.

"How odd... These stones are usually given to those chosen by the Tapu. For a wild pokémon to have found this is very strange..." Hala turned the stone over in his hands, pondering why the Tapu had chosen a stranger to the lands.

"Oh yeah, apparently the Tapu put Gil up by the Ruins in the hope that someone would find and help him. At least, that's what Gil told me after I pulled him free of the rock he was stuck in," Elio explained. At this, Hala stopped turning the stone over and looked at Elio, a small smile forming on his face. "This was after you volunteered to help Lillie find Nebby, right?" Hala asked. Elio nodded, and Hala's smile grew even bigger. "Then now we know why you got this. The Tapu must've seen how selfless you were and decided to gift you it. I will return this to you by tomorrow." Elio nodded.

"I'm going to head for home then. Come along, Gil. You can stay at mine," Elio told the honedge, who nodded happily and trailed after him.

"Hey! You and me! Let's have a pokémon battle!" A voice cried out as a boy ran full pelt towards Elio, stopping short of him. "I'm Hau. And this is one of my partners, Rowlet! Your litten looks really cool, too!"

"Thank you. My name is Elio. It's nice to meet you," Elio told Hau, who nodded happily.

"It's nice to meet you too! Now let's battle! I couldn't wait for you to find your way to Iki Town, so I've been all over looking for you!" Hau told the boy.

"No thanks, I'm done for today. Maybe tomorrow," Elio responded as he walked past the boy, who looked confused before whirling around to face the figure of Elio.

"Wait, what's wrong with your hand? It looks odd." Elio immediately hid his hand from Hau's sight and sped up his pace, forcing Aleister and Gilgamesh to speed up to keep up with him. Soon he had disappeared down the steps out of the town.

"Hau, where are your manners?" Hala admonished the boy, who rubbed his head sheepishly.

"Sorry, Tutu. But man, what's with him? You never refuse a trainer's challenge!" Hau complained.

"While it is true that most never refuse a trainer's challenge, some still refuse for their own reasons. Elio just got his first pokémon, so perhaps he didn't want to battle with them just yet," Lillie explained to Hau, who nodded his head in understanding.

"You'll get to fight him tomorrow, Hau. I'm sure he will want to battle then, yeah," Kukui reassured Hau. "In the meantime, we need to get you and your special Pokémon home, Lillie!" he told his assistant, who nodded.

"Yes. we need to get-" Lillie began to say, but stopped as the nebula like creature known as Nebby let out a mischevious cry behind her.

"Oh, Nebby!" Lillie cried out in annoyance, making the others laugh.

...

Marida was happy. She and her son had finally moved to the tropical paradise of Alola, and now Elio had brought his first pokémon home. Aleister and Chrissy, the family meowth were getting along like a house on fire and Gilgamesh was happy enough. With the setting sun casting streaks of orange in the sky above her, Marida played a simple tune on her flute on the porch, lost in the melody of the world until the harsh sound of someone knocking drew her out of her world.

"That's probably Kukui..." Marida mused as she walked in from the porch. Before she could get to the door, the visitor let himself in.

"Hey there, Marida! I came to get Elio, it's about time we set out for the festival, yeah!" he greeted her as he walked in.

"Hi, professor. Elio went into his bedroom to get changed so he'll probably be out soon," Marida explained to the professor, who nodded.

"That's good. He's gotta have a lot of energy for the festival! Though I have to ask," Kukui said, his voice lowering, "what's with the arm?"

Marida sighed as her smile vanished. She knew this was coming at some point. "That depends. Do you want the short version or the long version?" she asked him.

"Short version. We don't really have a lot of time," Kukui explained. Chrissy hopped up to the counter Marida was now leaning on with a worried expression on her face. Marida turned away from the professor.

"Around six months ago, Elio and my husband were involved in a car accident," Marida explained. Kukui's smile slid off his face.

"Marida... I'm so sorry." The professor lowered his eyes.

"Elio got extremely lucky. His right hand was crushed, and the doctors had no choice but to remove it. My husband, Elio's father, well... Elio didn't get to say goodbye. After he was discharged, I took him to where we buried him. He didn't cry. At all." Chrissy put a paw on Marida's shoulder. "A scientist who was in Kanto at the time heard of what happened, and offered to build him a replacement hand. Elio accepted, and that's why he has the hand. But he changed. Before he was a happy boy who loved going for adventures with his father. He was excited to come here and start his journey. But now... When he walked in last night with that litten and honedge... That was the first time since the accident I've seen him act like his old self." Marida admitted.

Any futher talk about Elio's past was halted by a door creaking open as Elio stepped out of his bedroom, yawning.

"Hey, mom. What time is it?" Elio asked.

"It's almost time for the festival, yeah! I'll meet you on Route 1, I wanna show you something cool!" And with that, the professor raced out the door. Elio looked at Marida, who continued to face the counter, not looking at her son.

"Go on, sweetheart. I'll see you at the festival," Marida told her son. Elio nodded. He walked over to his mom and gave her his usual hug before walking back into his room to retrieve his hat and bag.

"Gods... Please, let our new life here be a good one," Marida whispered to herself.

...

The journey through Route 1 had been uneventful. Professor Kukui had taught Elio how to catch pokémon and provided him with poké balls and potions, but Elio had been content to simply battle the local pokémon. Aleister was happy to tear through any unlucky pikipek or yungoos in his way while Gilgamesh watched on.

However, the trio's path to Iki Town was halted by two strange people in weird outfits.

They had discussed aura readings and 'The Blinding One', but they hadn't introduced themselves to Elio. Just noted that he wasn't from Alola and walked off. Elio didn't give it much thought. He just walked up the steps to Iki Town.

Iki Town was much more alive compared to the last time Elio was here. Two kids ran around with a rockruff and ran past Hala as he walked up to Elio.

"The Alola region is made up of our four islands. And each island has its own guardian pokémon. Our festival today is held to express our thanks to these great pokémon guardian deities for always remaining by our sides. Well, we may call it a festival, but it's just this little thing you see here. There may not be many of us, but at least every last one of us here goes all out," Hala explained to Elio, who nodded in understanding. Hala turned and began walking further into Iki, with Elio following after him.

They arrived near the stage. The boy named Hau was currently on the stage with Rowlet next to him. He was shaking hands with a girl who had two rockruff either side of her. She had long, jet black hair and had much darker skin compared to Elio.

"Ah, it appears we have arrived in time. Hau and Regina have finished their battle. Now, it is time for you to battle! Elio, are you and your partner ready to battle?" Hala asked Elio.

"Of course. We won't hold back." he told the Kahuna, who smiled in response.

"Then go let Hau know. And introduce yourself to Regina while you are at it." Elio walked over to the stage and began to climb the steps to where Hau and Regina were stood.

"Hey, I tried to battle you yesterday and you just blanked me!" Hau called out. Elio shrugged.

"Sorry. I'm ready to battle you now," he told the boy, who started hopping around in excitement.

"Hoo yeah! We're ready!"

"You're the one with the weird hand, right?" The black haired, tanned lady, Regina, asked Elio. Elio quickly hid his hand behind him.

"I guess. I'm Elio. I just moved here from Kanto," Elio told the girl, who smiled.

"I'm Regina! I'm originally from Poni Island, but because we don't have a kahuna there, I was sent here to begin my journey." Regina explained as she held her hand out to Elio, who just stared at it until she lowered it awkwardly.

"Will Elio and Hau take their places on the stage, please?" Hala called out. Elio and Hau moved to either side of the stage as Regina walked off stage into the gathering crowd.

"For all life on our islands... and for those who undertake the island challenge with joy in their hearts... we pray for your protection... for them and all Melemele. May this pokémon battle be an offering to our island's guardian deity—Tapu Koko!" Hala called out. "Before you stands Hau—grandson to the kahuna." Hau stepped forward with a grin on his face. "Before him stands Elio — one who has just arrived on our shores yet already earned the attention of the Tapu." A murmur ran through the crowd as Elio shuffled forward, his face showing no emotion. Marida watched on in the crowd, silently willing her son to do well.

"Elio! Hau! Bring forth the power of your pokémon! Let the battle begin!"

...

Hau deployed a pichu first. Elio sent out Aleister. With a quick Thundershock, Pichu got in the first move, electrocuting the cat. The litten got back up and fired off an Ember which scorched the mouse, but the electricity jolting along Aleister's body told everyone that Pichu had done his part. A second Thundershock was launched, an Ember fired back in retaliation, and Pichu was defeated, Aleister looking a little worse for wear.

"Good work, Pichu, take a long rest." Hau pulled out a second poké ball. "Rowlet, let's go!"

The owl was able to use its flight capabilties to zip around the cat and fire off multiple Leafage to weaken it while avoiding the Embers he was launching. Aleister tried his best to dodge, but the paralysis Pichu inflicted caused him to take more hits than he could dodge.

Aleister was finally able to connect with an Ember which inflicted heavy damage on Rowlet. The damage, coupled with exhaustion from flying around so much, caused Rowlet to crash to the ground. Only the paralysis stopped Aleister and Elio from going for the knockout.

"Rowlet, come on! We almost have him beat!" Hau begged his pokémon.

"Aleister! Can you keep going?" Elio asked his pokémon. Next to him, Gil watched on in concern.

Rowlet got back to her feet. Aleister broke free from the paralysis for a moment.

Both let out at powerful cry as auras flared and manifested around them. Engaging Overgrow and Blaze for one last attack.

"Leafage!"

"Ember!"

Both pokémon fired off attacks. Both attempted to dodge.

But Pichu's paralysis would come back to haunt Aleister one last time.

"Litten is unable to battle! The winner is rowlet! The victor is Hau!" Hala called out as Hau celebrated his victory. Elio stepped onto the stage and gently picked up Aleister.

"You fought well, my friend. Rest," Elio told him as he returned him.

"Hau graduated from the Trainer's School here in Alola, and is a descendant of the Koa family, who are revered as a line of skilled pokémon trainers. To even have knocked out one of his pokémon means you still fought well. With this, perhaps even Tapu Koko..." Hala's reassurance was cut off by a cry that echoed around the area. "Ho! You heard it yourself! Tapu Koko's song of approval." Hala reached into his pocket and walked over to Elio, drawing out what looked like a bracelet. "Oh, I nearly forgot! I think it is time you take this, Elio. That is your Z-Power Ring, a mysterious armband that can draw out the power that lies deep within pokémon... It can bring forth their Z-Power!"

"A Z-Power Ring?" Elio asked as he took the bracelet off Hala and slid it onto his right hand. Gazing at it, he could tell it was sturdy and well made.

Hala nodded. "We kahunas can make them by refining stones like the Sparkling Stone that you found by the bridge. Although until you collect more Z-Crystals during your island challenge, you will not be able to draw out the Z-Power of your pokémon."

"In other words, it's time for you to get out there and start your island challenge!" Professor Kukui interrupted.

"Island Challenge?" Elio asked.

"Four islands!" Kukui held up four fingers. "You'll travel to each of the four islands here in the Alola region. The island challenge is about aiming to be the strongest trainer— the island challenge champion. Woo!"

"Sounds interesting." Elio looked down at his hand, which held Aleister's Poké Ball. " _If I do that, it'll help Aleister achieve his goal of being stronger_." Elio thought to himself.

"Suppose it's time we get you kids home, yeah?" Kukui told him. The crowd was dispersing, people returning home now that the festival was over. Elio looked out and spotted his mom, waiting for him with small smile on her face.

"Yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Yes, Elio did lose the first battle against Hau. Why? Because I'm tired of seeing the main character just be able to steamroll everything in his path. I'm not going to make him a weak trainer, but he won't be defeating everyone in his path, either. 
> 
> Regina is an OC I created for a scrapped project. Initially, Regina was called Rex, and was a feral child who had been adopted by a pack of lycanroc on Poni Island, but for the purposes of this story, I have decided to redesign Rex to be Regina, a trainer from Poni Island instead. I'm aware that the original idea sounds more interesting, but Regina will still retain some of Rex's characteristics.
> 
> I've decided on what the upload schedule is going to be. It should be fortnightly uploads at 3:30pm GMT on Wednesdays, or 9pm GMT if I have to do something that day. The reason for this is because I'm about to start a course at university, so a fortnightly upload schedule will allow me time to stay on top of my coursework and to make enough of these chapters to be able to consistently upload when I get close to uni deadlines while still submitting work on time.
> 
> The battle scene was different from how I'd normally do them, so let me know what you thought of them. Until next time, remember to follow, favourite and review!


	3. The Journey Begins

**Chapter 3: The Journey Begins**

"So what do you think?" Professor Kukui asked Hala. The duo had come to where the Plank Bridge had been on the Mahalo Trail before it had collapsed into the rapids below. Hala inspected the posts, but drew back after a while.

"I can't see any intentional damage. It was simply the bridge's time, I'm afraid," Hala told the professor, who nodded.

"Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. But what about Tapu Koko? Do you really believe he just left that Sparkling Stone out for Elio to find?" Kukui asked.

"It's possible. Remember how you told me of that event a few years ago where three of Unova's deities appeared before a trainer to aid her on his quest?" Hala asked.

"Yeah, the Swords of Justice appeared to her to aid her in stopping Team Plasma. But how is that similar to what's happened with Elio?"

"Perhaps this is similar. The Tapu had it's reasons for choosing to let the man find the stone, even if we don't understand them yet. The Tapu must know of a mission that the man will have to undertake that even he is not aware of yet. Have faith in the Tapus, for they have not yet saw us wrong." And with that, Hala turned and began to walk down the Trail once more.

"Yeesh... If only the Tapu would tell us that mission, yeah..." Kukui turned and followed Hala down the trail.

Neither felt the intense eyes on them coming from the bush. Neither saw the creature launch itself from the bushes and fly off into the sky,

_Later that day..._

_Swish._

_Swish._

_Swish._

_**CLICK!** _

Elio walked over to where the Poké Ball lay, and picked it up.

"Welcome to the team, Volkner," he murmured.

Elio had been awoken from his slumber by the sounds of someone playing the flute. A quick investigation revealed it wasn't his mother, who was staring out the front window at something. When he'd asked about it, she simply told him someone was waiting for him at the door. Having gotten dressed and ready to go, Elio had opened the door to find the professor's assistant, Lillie, frantically stuffing something in her bag before turning to face him, looking awkward and anxious.

The duo had greeted each other and Lillie explained why she was there, complete with a spot on impression of Professor Kukui which got a snort out of Elio.

Marida had stepped out after that and reminded Elio to be safe, before giving him some money for pokémon food and a hug. She had then spotted Lillie.

"I saw you at the festival yesterday. You are the professor's assistant, right?" Marida had asked.

"Yes. M-my name is Lillie," Lillie had introduced herself.

"So you're Lillie. Elio mentioned he had helped out a cute girl called Lillie a couple of days ago. Mentioned you had lost something and he'd helped you find it." Elio rubbed the back of his head and refused to look at Lillie in response to his mother mentioning that. Marida noticed, and raised an eyebrow at her son's sheepishness before turning back to Lillie, who was also staring at the ground awkwardly. "Please, look after my son, he might be gruff and cold sometimes, but he's a good kid." Lillie had nodded. Elio and Marida shared one last hug before she went back inside the house.

"You... You have a nice mother, don't you?" Lillie had asked. Elio shrugged.

"Yeah... I'm sorry, but I didn't mention Nebby, if that's any comfort," Elio reassured her. Lillie had smiled and nodded and opened her mouth to say something, when she noticed something prodding his foot.

Lillie and the Pokédex had identified it as a grubbin. It had started chittering away at Elio.

" _He wants to know if you are a pokémon trainer,_ " Gilgamesh had translated. Elio had nodded, making the grubbin chitter more.

" _His name is Volkner. He heard of the island challenge from the other pokémon and he wants to go with a trainer on their island challenge._ " Elio shrugged.

"I've not started mine, but you are welcome to come with me now if you want," Elio had told him. Volkner chittered in happiness at this. Elio had retrieved a spare Poké Ball from his bag as well as Aleister's with the intention of battling him with Aleister, but before he could send out the litten, Volkner had fired a String Shot at the spare, pulled it to the ground and activated it, allowing himself to be captured, surprising Elio and Lillie.

Elio quickly sent Volkner back out and introduced him to Aleister and Gilgamesh. Once introductions were out the way, Lillie led Elio towards the Pokémon Lab, showing him a shortcut he could take to avoid the patches of grass and trainers by hopping down a ledge, almost toppling over on landing, earning a snort from Elio which earned him a glare from her back.

Naturally after that, Elio sped off towards the grass and trainers, eager to train up Volkner and Aleister.

Lillie watched on from a distance. Even from where she was, she could see the effects being a trainer was having on Elio. Compared to how he was at the festival, he seemed more awake now. He still bore his usual stoic expressions, but he seemed more comfortable out here now than he was before. The professor had mentioned Elio had seemed like he had been going through some tough times but from the way he was now, it was as if he was a perfectly normal person.

Lillie remained lost in her thoughts, thinking about Elio, Nebby and the professor until she was brought out of them by a presence in front of her.

"Sorry. Got distracted. Where were we going?" Elio asked her. Lillie blinked blankly at him before remembering.

"Oh yes, the lab. It's this way." Lillie started walking towards the lab, with Elio and the others catching.

"So... What's the deal with Hau? Hala mentioned he had graduated from a trainer's school..." Elio asked.

"Hau? Yes, he did. It was the Alolan Trainer's School here in Melemele. Hala gave him that rowlet he battled you with as a graduation present for choosing to study first and choosing to help Hala raise his pokémon instead of just setting out on his journey as soon as he could. There's quite a few graduates and students around Melemele, but some just drop out and start their journeys anyway, but the school does give all their students who graduate a large sum of money to fund their journeys, so most stay in school until then," Lillie explained.

"Wait, so you get paid to graduate?" Elio asked in surprise.

"To study and to graduate, yes."

"...Could've used something like that in Kanto," Elio grumbled as they began to walk up towards the steps to the lab.

...

"Zzzt! Nice to meet ya, pal! Gentle on the goods, okay?" the Pokédex asked Elio as the Rotom got comfortable inside the device.

"See Elio? Now your Pokédex can talk to you! From what I can tell, yeah, rotom has taken a liking to you!" Kukui explained to the boy.

"Nice to meet you too. Do you have a name?" Elio asked the rotom.

"Zzrt! Jus' Rotom is fine!" Rotom told Elio, who nodded.

"And this will help how, exactly?" Lillie asked.

"Elio hasn't been here too long, yet. So I decided to give him that special Rotom Dex to help him navigate around. It'll show him where he's headed and if he taps the screen, it'll bring up the town map!" Kukui explained as Elio tapped Rotom's screen, bringing up a map of Melemele Island.

"Huh," Elio mumbled. Seemed this island was pretty big. " _Hopefully there would be plenty of stuff to do here,"_ he thought to himself as Rotom dived into Elio's bag, dislodging Gilgamesh from his sleeping spot and causing him to blearily look at the haunted pokédex before going back in the bag and going back to sleep.

"How come you haven't caught that honedge yet?" The professor asked.

"His name is Gilgamesh. And he hasn't asked to be caught. He has some things he wants to take care of," Elio explained.

The opening of the door alerted everyone to Hau's arrival. The professor's rockruff let out a little yap as the Kahuna's grandson walked in to the lab and waved at the group.

"A-lo-laaaa! The salty breeze sang to me and brought me here to you!" Hau sang. Lillie waved back while Elio just stared at him. Hau took the moment to look around the lab, and spotted the snubbull and stufful.

"Whoa-ho-ho!" Hau cried out as he ran towards the two, causing them to run away from him as he stopped and looked around more, before spotting the ladder to the loft.

"Is that a loft? That's awesome!" Hau went to climb the ladder before Lillie bolted over to him and stopped him.

"No it's not! It's private! The professor has been kind enough to let me use it..." Lillie explained.

" _Suppose it's better than nothing,_ " Elio thought as he and the professor walked over to where Lillie and Hau were standing.

"You see, here in Alola, we work together to help each other out! I saw Lillie was in need of help and I helped her, just like all Alolans do!" Kukui explained. "Anyway, since you and Elio are starting off on your island challenges, there are a few important things you need to know, yeah!"

"Ooh, I know this! The island challenge allows you to go on an adventure to become the strongest trainer in Alola, otherwise known as the island challenge champion!" Hau called out, earning a smile and a thumbs up from Kukui.

"Island challenge champion? What, like Kanto's Pokémon League Champion?" Elio asked.

"Sort of. There are four main islands with their own kahunas. If you wish to be recognised by the kahunas, you must clear the eight trials of Alola." Lillie explained.

"So these kahunas are like the Elite Four? Only, there is one on each island rather than in all in one spot?"

"Close enough, cousin. But Elio and Hau, I want you two and your pokémon to give the island challenge a shot! Both of you showed potential in your first battle at the festival, so you both clearly have a knack for drawing out a pokémon's strengths, yeah," the professor explained.

" _I'm not sure about this. I lost my first battle yesterday, what's to say I won't fail the trials?_ " Elio thought to himself.

Elio looked at his cybernetic hand, hidden inside the glove, remembering what he'd been told upon being discharged from hospital...

" _That hand is designed to help you take on any challenges that come your way. Don't let the technology inside of it go to waste_."

Was the island challenge really a good enough reason for the technology he had been given?

" _Remember, Elio. If you fail, then it means you at least tried to do it. No good can come of not trying at all_." The words of Elio's father came back to him.

"Father..." Elio whispered. Steeling himself, he looked up at the professor. "I'll do it. I'll take the island challenge."

"Oh yeah, that is awesome to hear! As someone dedicated to studying pokémon moves, I want you two to go out there and meet all kinds of different pokémon on your journey!" Kukui reached into his lab coat pocket and pulled out an island challenge amulet and gave it to Elio, who attached it to his bag.

"Elio, you need to get a move on to the Trainer's School! Before you can truly start your journey, you need to learn the basics!" Elio sweatdropped in response to that.

"Seriously? I already know how to battle," Elio grumbled.

"Hah, yeah right. That's why I beat you at the festival, right?" Hau said.

"Not all of us have kahunas for family," Elio countered. Ignoring his comment, Hau put his hands behind his head and adopted a relaxed posture.

"Besides, I'm good. I'm happy to play with my pokémon-I mean, train with them. Right!" Hau amended his statement hastily, causing Elio to turn his face away to hide his smirk.

"The island challenge. That must be how the people of Alola connect to the world around them..." Lillie muttered to herself. Elio caught that comment and looked at the girl, grey eyes catching green's attention.

"You thinking of taking the challenge too?" he asked her.

Lillie frantically shook her head. "Oh no, I'm not a trainer! I-I can't take the island challenge..."

Kukui turned to Lillie. "Lillie! Take care of Elio for me, will ya? Until he gets used to Rotom, help him find his way around!" he told his assistant.

"O-of course. The Trainer's School is this way." Lillie began walking out of the lab. Elio looked at Kukui and Hau, who were having their own conversation, and walked out after her.

"You sure you want to take the challenge? You seemed hesitant before," Lillie asked him as he walked out.

Elio shrugged. It seemed to be his favourite response. "Aleister and Volkner want to. And Gil said that the first trial was on the way to the meadow where its friend lives," Elio explained.

Suddenly, the world went dark. Elio glanced up and Lillie looked around in confusion, before the world lit up again.

"What was that?" Elio asked.

"I have no idea." Lillie responded.

"Guys, did something happen? Everything outside went dark for some reason!" Hau shouted as he ran out of the lab. Both Elio and Lillie shook their heads.

"Guess it was nothing... I'm gonna go train! See ya!" And with that, Hau bolted away.

"Oh, right. I can show you to the trainer's school, if you wish to go there?" Lillie asked him.

Elio shrugged. "Might as well. It means we can train there." Lillie nodded, and began to lead the way there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: So Elio has caught a new team member and he has officially started his island challenge. Wonder what's up next?
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. Be sure to leave a favourite, a follow and a review telling me what you thought!


	4. Arrival in Hau'oli

**Chapter 4: Arrival in Hau'oli**

The local oriocorio were grouped together, rehearsing their dance routine for the big day that was to come. Some mahukita had been brought in to help set up the arbor the wedding was to take place under, and where working with some other flabébé to set it up.

Behind a corner, Lea watched it all. The preparations for her wedding were under way. Soon, she'd be married, and she'd been stuck with her jerkass of a fiancé for the rest of her life.

"Lea?" The sound of her mother, the Queen of Melemele Meadow, calling for her got her to peek out from behind the corner she was hiding in. "Lea, there you are! Come along now dear, we need to make sure your wedding wreath fits!" she told her as she floated towards her.

"Mother, why do I need to marry Richard? We know he's just in this for the power he can get by marrying into the family!" Lea complained.

"I know, Lea. But I'm afraid if you don't, then they'll take Melemele Meadow over by force. It is our duty as protectors of the meadow to ensure that the residents here are safe by any means necessary," her mother, Rosa, explained to her.

"But surely we have the power to take them down if they tried!" Lea yelled.

"Don't yell at me, Lea. If we started a war with them the civilian casualties would be unacceptable. That's why we must do this," Rosa told her daughter. "Now come along." Rosa set off back towards their home.

"No..." Lea whispered. ' _I won't marry him. I'll run away! If I run away, they can't start a war over it because it's not my mother's fault!_ ' she thought to herself. Watching her mother float away, Lea waited til she was far enough away and then moved as fast as she could for a place she knew she could hide.

' _I'm sorry mother. But I won't get married! There must be another way!_ ' Lea thought as she ran.

...

In the middle of the school yard, Lillie stood. She watched Elio as he charged around, hunting for the four trainers he had to face.

The challenge had been laid down when Elio and Lillie arrived at the school. The students had met the duo when they walked in and issued a challenge.

"If you can beat four of us, we'll give you a special prize!" they had declared.

"What's the catch?" Elio had asked.

"Not all of us are trainers. Good luck figuring out which one's which!" they had told them as they seperated and ran off. Elio and Lillie shared a glance and Elio rolled his eyes.

"Why did I even ask?" he groaned.

"Well, on the bright side, you can train some more here..." Lillie trailed off. Elio had sighed and shook his head.

"I'll be back." he grumbled. And with that, Elio had ran off into the school, leaving Lillie to stand there awkwardly.

The first trainer Elio had found was in a classroom, where they had been discussing battles with some other students in the classroom.

"Yay, you found me! Let's have a battle!" they called out. Elio had nodded and threw Volkner's Poké Ball into the air.

"Pi, do your best!" A metapod emerged from the Poké Ball the student, Mia, had thrown.

"Rotom, record the data of that pokémon," Elio ordered. The floating pokédex emerged out of his bag and scanned the metapod.

"Now, let us begin!"

"Pi, Tackle!" Mia called out. The metapod launched itself at the grubbin.

"Wait for it... Grab it with Vice Grip!" Elio commanded. Volkner's pincers began to glow white as it waited for Pi to get closer. Just before the metapod's attack could connect, Volkner arced his pincers up and caught Pi, and began squeezing with all his might.

"Oh no! Pi, use Harden!" Mia called out, but it was too late. Volkner had applied enough pressure to knock out the metapod, and gently placed Pi on the ground and released him.

" _Volkner's stronger than I thought_ ," Elio realised as the grubbin turned to him, clicking his mandibles in a way that suggested he was wanted praise.

"No way... In a single attack?" she lamented.

"Volkner, good work," Elio told him as he scooped him up. "Direct hit on the metapod, I think," he explained to the girl.

"Awww. I wanted to have a proper battle." she mumbled as she fed an Oran Berry to Pi.

"If you get stronger, we can battle again, I promise," Elio told her. She perked up at that. They agreed to battle again, with Mia providing Elio with some Oran Berries as a parting gift.

Elio located his second opponent in a gated off patch of grass.

"You won't beat me easily! My Grimy's Poison Gas will beat you!" Joey declared, throwing out a grimer.

"Rotom, get the data on this one. Why does it look different to the ones in Kanto?" Elio asked as Rotom recorded the data on it.

"I dunno, it just is! Come on!" Joey told him. Elio shrugged and sent out Aleister.

"Poison Gas!" Joey yelled. Grimy began expelling a purple gas from his mouth, which began floating towards Aleister.

"Is that gas flammable? Only one way to know... Aleister, use Ember on the Poison Gas!" Elio ordered. The litten fired off a small hairball of fire at the haze, which surprisingly ignited it on contact, enveloping Grimy in the flames.

"Wait, what?" Joey blurted out. The flames dissipated, revealing Grimy to still be standing, but with nasty looking burn marks on his arms.

"Burnt. Nice going Aleister. Use Ember again," Elio told the cat, who let out a determined yowl as he launched a second fireball.

"We aren't going down that easily! Use Pound to deflect the Ember!" Joey ordered. Grimy's hand began to glow white as he swung his arm back. Launching forward, Grimy blasted the Ember back at Aleister.

"Launch yourself towards the Ember and use Scratch!" Aleister leaped forward towards the incoming Ember, the nails on his paws elongating and glowing white as he swiped at the fireball, causing it to detonate.

"We got him! Use Poison Gas again!" Joey ordered.

"Ember!" Aleister smirked as he emerged from the explosion, and opened his mouth to reveal the fireball ready for firing. Grimy's eyes widened comically before the fireball was expelled, igniting the gas once more and surrounding the duo in a gout of fire. Aleister nimbily backflipped out of the fire and landed in front of Elio as the fire faded, revealing Grimy was out cold.

"Using Pound after I ordered Ember to deflect the attack back at me was a smart move," Elio told him. Elio and Joey shook hands before Elio set off to find the next trainer.

Next up was Hiromi, who Elio spotted hiding around the corner of the school building after exiting it.

"I was wondering if you'd find me. Come on, let's battle!" she called out as she sent Bonnie, her bonsly.

"Interesting. We're at a disadvantage here... Volkner, go up, I have an idea," Elio told the grubbin, who hopped off Elio's shoulder and to the ground.

"Rock Throw!" Hiromi yelled. Bonnie conjured up a boulder and hurled it at Volkner.

"Use String Shot and swing up to the roof!" Elio ordered. Volkner jumped up and spat out a string of webbing at the roof to swing himself out of the way of the Rock Throw, landing on the roof of the building. " _Now, hopefully Volkner can do this like Mom's old vivillion could,"_ Elio thought to himself.

"Rock Throw again!" Hiromi yelled. Bonnie conjured up another boulder and hurled it up at Volkner.

"Volkner, leap towards the boulder!" Elio ordered. Volkner gave him a funny look for that but jumped off the roof regardless, managing to fly just over the boulder. "Now use String Shot to launch it back!" Elio ordered. Volkner flipped forwards so he was facing the boulder, fired off more webbing at it and used his strength to flip around and throw it towards Bonnie, before letting go and firing off another String Shot to swing and land on the ground safely. Behind him, Bonnie let out a cry of pain as her own Rock Throw smashed into her and bowled her over.

"Bonnie!" Hiromi called out in alarm. Bonnie kicked her feet around in a tantrum, upset at being hit with her own move.

"Nice work, Volkner!" Elio told the grubbin, who chittered happily in response. After a short while, Bonnie jumped back up to her feet wearing an enraged expression.

"Tackle!" Hiromi ordered. Bonnie leapt at Volkner and smashed her body into him, knocking the grubbin back a few steps.

"Volkner, you okay?" Elio asked. Volkner chittered loudly.

"Zzt! He says it didn't phaze him!" Rotom translated. Elio nodded.

"Tackle again!" Hiromi ordered.

"Catch it with Vice Grip!" Elio commanded. Volkner caught the charging Bonnie in with his Vice Grip and applied all of his power, knocking her out at last.

"Aw... I lost," Hiromi moaned. Elio shrugged and picked up Volkner, placing him on his right shoulder as he walked away.

The final trainer, Joseph was located in a basketball court outside of the school. He turned to face Elio as he walked up to him.

"You've beaten the other three trainers? You won't beat me so easily! Reece, go!" he declared, throwing out an ekans. Aleister and Volkner both recoiled at the sight of Reece.

"Rotom, get the data. Aleister, you are up," Elio ordered. The litten leapt off Elio's shoulder and hissed at Reece, eager to battle.

"Reece, Poison Sting!" Joseph ordered. The ekans raised his head and opened his mouth, spewing out a barrage of purple barbs at Aleister.

"Dodge and use Ember!" Elio commanded. Aleister leapt into the air over the Poison Sting and fired off a fireball, striking Reece square in the face.

"Reece, you okay?" Joseph asked. Reece struggled up, the Ember having dealt major damage to him.

"Wrap this up. Ember once more!" Elio ordered. With no hesitation, Aleister blasted another Ember at Reece. The flames scorched the ekans, knocking it out cold.

"Reece, no!" Joseph called out.

"That's four," Elio said. "You said four, right?"

"We did. Well done. Here's your prize." Joseph pulled out a disc like object and handed it to Elio.

"A TM?" Elio asked.

"Correct. That's the TM for Work Up, a neat move which increases your pokémon's strength," Joseph explained. Elio nodded and stored it in a compartment in his bag as he walked over back to Lillie.

"The special prize was a TM for Work Up," Elio explained. "But we got some training in, so-"

**"Would Elio Solaris please come to the second floor? Elio Solaris to the second floor, please."** The announcement echoed around the school yard, drawing all eyes to Elio.

"Oh my! What did you do to get called up to the second floor?" Lillie asked him.

"I have no idea," Elio told her honestly.

"You'll have to go and see who wants you up there, then," Lillie told him. Elio nodded and began walking towards the school doors. "Elio!" Elio turned to face her. "I-I think your team could do with healing." Lillie looked down at the ground, embarrassed at having shouted to get his attention.

Elio looked at Aleister and Volkner, perched on his shoulders. "Oh yeah, that'd be good," he said.

"I have some Potions in my bag..." Lillie started pulling out some Potions as Elio walked over to her. "I-I don't like seeing pokémon hurt, sorry..." she trailed off. Elio nodded and held them out for her to spray the medication on. A few moments later, Aleister and Volkner were fully healed and raring to go.

"Thanks for that," Elio told her before charging off towards the school.

Elio ascended the stairs to the second floor, moving as fast as his legs could carry him. "Sooner this is done the better," he sighed to himself.

"So you are the trainer who beat all my students?" A voice called as he reached the second floor.

"I guess. Who's asking?" Elio called back, looking up from the stairs to see who the voice belonged to.

"That would be me. I'm Miss Emily, and I'm the principal here," Emily introduced herself as Elio reached the top of the stairs. "I wanted to thank you for battling with my students. I saw your battle with Hiromi from up here and I have to ask, how did you figure out how to counter the Rock Throw like that? It was like one of Madame Cauchemar's moves!" Emily asked him. Elio just shrugged.

"Cauchemar was my mother... I watched a lot of tapes of her battles," he explained.

"The child of a former Kalos League Champion? I must say, you must be an exceptional trainer then!" Emily told him. Elio shook his head.

"Not really. I just started."

"Ah. Well, I won't keep any more of your time. Here, Professor Kukui left this for our students to use, but I think you'd make better use of it," Emily explained as she pulled out a gray crown like object. Elio recognised it immediately.

"An Experience Share? You sure?" Elio asked. Emily nodded, so Elio gently took it off her and stored it in his bag. "Thank you. I'll take care of it."

"You are welcome. Now, I'm guessing you have places to be, so I won't keep you for much longer. Though I should let you know, one of my students is a trial captain here. I'm sure he's eager to meet you one day." And with that, Emily walked towards the staff room and went inside.

"So, an Experience Share... That's neat. Come on, the next town awaits," Elio told the pokémon on his shoulders, who let out cheers in response.

...

"Howdy, what ya working on?" Regina greeted the kantonian as she walked into the Pokémon Centre. At Lillie's suggestion, Elio had made a beeline for the Pokémon Centre when they had arrived in Hau'oli to book a room and heal his team up, opting to explore the town later when he had rested. After turning Aleister and Volkner over to Nurse Joy to be checked over, Elio had opted to sit in one of the corner booths with Gilgamesh and Lillie, who were now watching Elio as he investigated the inner workings of the device lying on the table.

"Got an Experience Share off someone, so I'm tinkering with it," he explained, waving a hand at the booth to show she could sit down.

Regina let out a low whistle as she sat down next to Lillie. "That's a nice piece of tech there. You sure you wanna be tinkering with it?" she asked him.

"I always like tinkering with tech. I know what I'm doing, I think," Elio told her. Barely a second afterward, Elio let out a sharp hiss and dropped the screwdriver he was holding, drawing worried looks from Lillie, Gilgamesh and Regina.

"You okay?" Lillie asked. Elio nodded.

"I'm fine. Tensed a muscle too hard, I think," he lied as he flexed his hand. Lillie didn't look convinced.

"So how does an Experience Share work, then?" Regina asked.

"That's a closely guarded secret. Best I can figure is that the device uses some sort of aura to share experiences between pokémon in a certain radius, so that as long as one of them is involved, they can all learn and adapt to new situations without training or being in the situation themselves." Elio sighed and closed a panel on the device, screwing it shut again. "Can't seem to figure out how though, or even if there's a way to amplify it to ensure every pokémon in a given area gets the full experience." Elio picked up the device and stored it back in the bag.

"Mr Solaris, your pokémon are ready," Nurse Joy called out. Elio stood up from the booth and walked over to the nurse.

"They are both in perfect health. Thank you for your patronage!" she told him. Elio nodded, thanked her and let out Aleister and Volkner and began to walk over to Lillie and Regina.

"...And onto our next story. The driver who killed one person and seriously injured another in Kanto has been sentenced to jail for five years..." the presenter on the Pokémon Centre's television read out.

"Wait, what?" Elio asked as he turned to face the TV and began to walk up to it.

"...Johnathan Waylock, who was an inhabitant of Malie City until he moved to Saffron City in Kanto, was recently found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving after footage was uncovered of him livestreaming on his Festival Plaza account while operating a heavy goods vehicle, which was later involved in a car accident which claimed the life of Aleister Solaris and badly injured another passenger. Initally pleading not guilty, he was later found guilty by the jury and has now been sentenced to five years in prison as well as being banned from driving for three years. Our reporter outside of Vermillion Prison has more on the story..." The screen then changed to a reporter outside an intimidating looking structure ringed with barbed wire and chainlink, but Elio wasn't paying attention anymore.

"Five years... Is that it? Just five years?!" Elio asked, incredulousness creeping into his voice as heads around the Pokémon Centre turned to look at the man who was ranting in front of the TV.

"Hey, Elio! Long time no see!" Hau's voice echoed around the Centre as he rushed in. Elio closed his eyes and clenched his hands.

_"Deep breaths, Elio. Calm yourself, you are making a scene,"_ he thought to himself.

"Is he alright?" one of the other trainers asked Regina.

"I think so, I think that was someone he knew is all," she explained. After a moment, Elio opened his eyes and walked back over to the booth.

"Elio, you doing okay?" Hau asked as he walked over to them.

"Yeah yeah, sorry. Just..." Elio shrugged his shoulders and looked up at Hau, dark grey eyes meeting chocolate brown. "Just things," he told him.

"O...kay... Oh yeah, did you know your pokédex can get an upgrade called the Poké-Finder? I picked this up from the tourist bureau for you!" Hau told him excitedly. Elio grabbed the upgrade off him and stored it in his bag.

" _Five years?!"_ Elio thought angrily but kept his voice as even as he could as he turned to reach for his bag. "That's great, Hau. Thank you. I'm gonna go off to bed. See you guys later," Elio told them, grabbing up his bag and walking off towards the stairs to his room with Aleister, Volkner and Gilgamesh in tow.

"Is he alright?" Hau asked Lillie and Regina, who both shook their heads.

"I'm not sure. Something came on the television and he just, well..." Regina trailed off.

"I'm sure there's a reason for it," Lillie told them. The other two nodded.

"So how was guiding the newbie around?" Hau asked Lillie as he sat down in the booth.

"Well, first he decided to do some training in the grass so I had to keep healing his team. It's quite interesting how Aleister and Volkner are still raring to go no matter how hurt they get..."

...

"Five years... Just five years. He'll be able to go back to a normal life after that!" Elio grumbled to himself as he placed his bag down and pulled a pair of shorts out of it. "I don't have a father or a hand anymore and he just gets to waltz out and do whatever after five years..." he continued to grumble until he finished changing and lay down on the bed. Any further grumbling was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Great..." Elio got up off the bed and stood still for a moment, composing himself before he opened the door.

"Hey Elio, we were wondering if you-" Lillie's question was cut off when she noticed Elio no longer had a t-shirt on, causing her to look away awkwardly.

"Huh? Oh, right." Elio quickly grabbed the top he wore that day and pulled it back on. "My bad. You were saying?"

"W-we were wondering if you were okay, you seemed quite distressed earlier," she finished explaining.

"Oh. It's not really something I want to talk about at the moment, sorry..." Now it was Elio's turn to look away awkwardly.

"O-oh! My apologies."

"It's fine. I'll tell you guys when I am ready. But for now, I need some time alone."

"That's perfectly fine. We'll see you tomorrow, then." With that, Lillie smiled and walked away, leaving Elio to close the door.

" _That was nice of her to check on you,"_ Gilgamesh commented.

"Her? She said the others were worried too," Elio told him.

" _Yet she came to see us, not them,_ " Gilgamesh said. Aleister looked up from where he was curled up and let out a yowl. " _Aleister says it was funny watching you two_ _talk to each other,_ " Gilgamesh translated.

"What do you mean?" he asked them.

" _I think he meant Lillie more than you. She was surprised when she saw you without an top o_ _n,"_ Gilgamesh explained.

"And? Maybe she's not used to seeing topless people," Elio countered. Aleister let out a series of purrs which sounded suspiciously like laughter to Elio, causing him to narrow his eyes at him.

" _Considering she helps the professor? In this region?"_ Gilgamesh translated. Elio pulled his glove off and threw it at Aleister, earning a disapproving grunt from Gilgamesh.

"Can we not discuss this? I want to go to sleep," Elio told them. Aleister let out a sigh, but shifted over to let Elio sit down to begin his nightly ritual of checking his hand to ensure everything was working correctly. Once that was done, Elio turned out the light and laid down on the bed.

"Tomorrow, we'll explore this town. For now, you need to sleep," he told them. Gilgamesh nodded and floated over to lie next to the bag while Volkner snuggled up next to Elio's neck and Aleister laid at his feet.

"Night, guys. See you tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Well, we are here in Hau'oli now! And there's a bit of Elio's backstory too!
> 
> The Experience Share will function differently to how it does in the games. There's not going to be levels in the story, so it'll will serve a different role instead.
> 
> Next chapter will see grunts, shopping and malasadas. Be sure to leave a favourite, a follow and a review telling me what you thought!


	5. Encounter with Team Skull

 

**Chapter 5:** **Encounter with Team Skull**

_Knock knock knock._

"Elio? You up yet?" A voice called out behind the door. Elio continued to snore away, but the knocking woke someone else up.

_Knock knock knock._

"Elio?"

Aleister let out a yawn, annoyed at being disturbed while sleeping. Glancing at his trainer, it seemed like Elio wasn't waking up on his own, so he was going to have to wake him up himself. The litten sneakily snuck over to next to where Elio was resting his head, a light snore indicating that he was still in dreamland. Aleister smirked, and started jumping on Elio's face, letting out yowls and purrs as he did so. Elio woke up almost immediately.

"Ugh... Okay okay, Aleister! I'm up!" Elio grumbled as he unsuccessfully started trying to bat away the cat, who walked away smugly.

_Knock knock knock._

"Elio!"

"I'm up!" Elio called out. Stumbling out of bed, Elio staggered open the door and unlocked it, opening it up a crack to see who was the cause of that constant knocking.

"Howdy, thought you weren't going to get up then." Regina greeted him.

"I am now. Give me time to get dressed," he told her. She nodded and walked away.

"Gods..." Elio moaned as he rubbed his eyes. Opening his bag up, he pulled out another pair of pants and a t-shirt to wear. "Come on guys, get up," he told his team as he grabbed his glove from where he flung it at Aleister last night and pulled it on his hand after getting dressed. Volkner let out an adorable little yawn as he crawled over to Elio to be picked up. Waiting until the last moment, Aleister leapt onto Elio's back, knocking him off balance and causing him to topple over onto the bed, narrowly avoiding squashing Volkner.

"Aleister!" Gilgamesh watched as the litten ran out the room roaring with laughter with Elio running after it before yawning and opening the compartment it and Rotom usually stayed in, and made itself comfortable.

"Zzrrt?" Rotom asked. Gilgamesh let out a low cry, which Rotom understood and powered off after moving over to make space for Gilgamesh.

...

"Sorry for how you saw me last night. Wasn't expecting visitors," Elio told Lillie apologetically.

Lillie shook her head. "Oh no, it's fine. Just wasn't expecting it is all." Elio nodded and looked down at his drink. They were sat in a corner booth again, Elio hunched over a roserade tea as he tried to stop himself falling asleep again while Lillie sat on the opposite side, feeding Nebby some candy. Aleister, Volkner and Gilgamesh were munching away at some poké food Elio had bought from the local Poké Mart next to them, Aleister was being much more enthusiatic about eating it than Volkner and Gilgamesh.

"How's the food?" Elio asked his team.

" _Could be better but then again, I've never eaten stuff like this. Aleister seems to be enjoying it though,"_ Gilgamesh told him.

"I've been wondering... Can you use telepathy as well?" Lillie asked Elio. Elio shook his head.

"Unfortunately not. I've tried to, but it just seems to be one way," he told her.

"Oh."

" _I believe only psychic types are able to utilize two way telepathy, and only then with trainers with exceptionally strong brainwaves. My species usually only use it when we become doublade, but we always had the ability to use telepathy,"_ Gilgamesh explained.

"Since honedge only really use telepathy as doublade, their telepathy powers aren't strong enough to use it as a two way communication system with their trainers," Elio told Lillie.

" _You know I can use telepathy to tell her that too, right?"_ Gilgamesh told him. Elio shrugged.

"I figured you couldn't use telepathy to talk to two people at once. My bad," he told it. Gilgamesh went back to eating as Regina walked over with Hau in tow, Pichu on his shoulder and Rowlet flying along behind him.

"Got Hau up. He took longer than Elio did," Regina told them as she sat down next to Lillie and Hau went to sit next to Elio as Volkner and Gilgamesh greeted Pichu and Rowlet. Aleister ignored them in favour of his food.

"I was fixing up my hair. It's not easy getting it to stay like this..." Hau complained, causing Regina to laugh.

"Well now, I ought to teach you a trick or two about fixing your hair when you are on the road. Can't always rely on getting to a Pokémon Centre before nightfall," she told Hau, who nodded eagerly. "Now where are..." Regina began to say, but right on cue, two rockruff ran down the stairs and ran over to where everyone was sat, with a third one lagging behind.

"Elio, you've not been introduced to my rockruff, have you?" Regina asked him. Elio shook his head. "Well, now's better than never. This guy with the green collar is Fenris, and the one with the blue collar is Rex!" she told hm as she picked them up. Rex immediately climbed on the table and ran over to sniff Elio while Fenris curled up on Regina's lap.

"Hi..." Elio greeted the pup, who smiled and licked his cheek, causing Elio to recoil and Hau to snort at his response.

"Rex, come here. And you need to meet the last one. This little lady with the black collar here is Sienna, but she's more distant compared to Rex and Fenris, I'm afraid." Sure enough, Sienna hopped up and sat next to Regina, not taking any notice of Volkner's attempts to greet him. The grubbin eventually gave up and went to play with Pichu.

"So what's the plan, people?" Hau asked as Elio took a sip of his tea. "Lillie?" The girl in question looked at him with a startled expression.

"Well, I was thinking that since Elio and Regina have not been here before, we should show them around and see if they want to do some shopping," Lillie suggested. Regina nodded happily at that.

"Yeah, that sounds good. Elio?" All eyes turned to him as he finished his cup of tea and put down the cup.

"Fine with me. Gil, how long until you have to be at Melemele Meadow?" he asked the honedge.

" _Three days_."

"Can we get to the meadow in three days?" Elio asked.

"Of course. The meadow's half a day's walk from the trial site, so you have plenty of time," Lillie told him. Elio nodded and looked at Gilgamesh.

" _I want to look around Hau'oli too, then_ ," he declared. Volkner and Aleister cried in agreement.

"Guess that's that. When do you guys want to leave?" Elio asked.

"I'm ready whenever!" Hau replied, smiling. Elio looked at Regina and Lillie, who both nodded.

"Guess we should get going then. Gil, back in the bag," he told the honedge, who nodded.

"You too, Nebby," Lillie told the cosmog. Nebby shook its body and refused.

" _Little one, listen to your mother. You can't fight like the others can, so you are safer in there,"_ Gilgamesh told it. Nebby pouted at Gilgamesh, but went inside the bag regardless.

"I'm not sure what you told it, but thank you," Elio told Gilgamesh, who shrugged and hopped into his bag.

...

"Oh yeah, Elio, did you upgrade Rotom?" Hau asked as they stepped out.

"Zzt! He did!" Rotom told them as he flew out the bag.

"Wasn't too difficult," Elio admitted. Rotom let out a buzzing sound to draw their attention and quickly snapped a picture.

"...It just took a picture, didn't it?" Lillie asked. Elio nodded.

"Rotom! You sneaky trickster!" Hau laughed.

"So where are we going first?" Regina asked, interrupting them. Elio called up the map for the city on Rotom's screen and the four of them looked at it, trying to figure out where to go first.

"There's a clothes store nearby. I need to pick up some clothes for the journey, so going there would be good," Elio explained.

"Alola Photo Club... I've heard of those. Don't they let you take photos with your pokémon there?" Regina asked.

"That's right. I wanna go there and check it out myself," Hau told her.

Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go then!" Regina called out as she grabbed Hau's arm and dragged him towards a gate in front of them. Ignoring Hau's protests, she leapt onto the fence next to the gate and jumped off it over the grass to the path and turned to look at Hau expectantly, her rockruff squeezing through the gate and running after her as Lillie gawked at what she just did.

Hau shook his head and rubbed his arm where her grip had left a mark"...Nah. I would get into a lot of trouble doing that. I'm gonna take the long route. See you three later!" Hau called as he ran along the pavement.

"Well, alrighty. I'll meet him there then. See y'all later!" Regina turned and ran down the path, leaving Lillie and Elio on their own again.

"Well... Shall we go to clothes shop?" Elio asked. Lillie nodded and the two of them started to walk along the pavement to where the shop was.

"I was wondering... do you pick out all your own clothes?" Lillie asked Elio as they walked.

"Only recently. We didn't really use to have enough money so I'd just wear whatever we could afford. I don't really care much for fashion," he admitted. "What about you?" he asked as she looked over his mismatched outfit of green shorts and a scruffy blue tank top. Lillie stopped and looked down at her feet, as she remembered why she wore her outfits.

"What?" Elio asked.

"O-oh, nothing, just you are at least trying to pick your own clothes... I've always just worn the clothes that my mother wanted me to wear. I don't really know what kind of thing would suit me..." Lillie trailed off. Elio shrugged.

"You'll figure it out. I'm hoping I'll figure it out at some point, even I know this isn't ideal," he admitted.

" _Elio, some guys just appeared down the road from us and look like they are headed this way. I don't like how they look,"_ Gilgamesh warned Elio. He nodded.

"Sorry about this," he told Lillie apologetically, before grabbing her hand and walking as quickly as he could for the door of the shop.

"Wait, Elio! Elio, what are you doing?" Lillie squeaked. The two of them walked into the shop and closed the door behind them. "Elio?" she asked him.

"Sorry about that. Gil saw some shifty guys behind us and I wanted us off the street before they got here," he explained, looking through the window as two thugs in white caps and black tank tops walked down the road passed the shop, one of them making some sort of obnoxious beatboxing noises as they passed.

"Those louts? That's Team Skull," a woman told them as she walked over to them.

"T-Team Skull?" Lillie stammered. The woman nodded. "I've... I've heard they steal people's island challenge amulets and pokémon, and rip up the trial stickers the captains put up around Alola," she told Elio.

"A bunch of hooligans, then. I feared something worse." Elio turned to face Lillie now. "I apologise for dragging you in here, Lillie. I overreacted."

"I-It's fine, we wanted to do some shopping here anyway," she reassured him and the lady. The lady smiled and nodded in understanding, and walked back over to where she was stood looking at dresses.

"You got something to keep you occupied? I might be a while," Elio asked her. She nodded.

"I have some books I can read. I'll be fine," she told him.

"In that case, may I borrow one of them at some point? It'd be nice to read a proper book if I have to wait for a while somewhere," he asked. She nodded and he turned to look through the clothing rails, leaving her to pull out a book to read from her bag.

" _That was a little excessive,"_ Gilgamesh warned Elio.

"Next time, tell me it's a bunch of louts. I got worried it was someone dangerous." Elio hissed under his breath.

" _I only have a small gap to see through, Elio. I'm not an abra, I can't psychically know how dangerous someone is_ ," Gilgamesh fired back. Elio opted to stay quiet, not wanting to get into an argument with his bag in the middle of a clothing shop, choosing instead to focus his energy on looking for clothes to take with him. Grabbing a pair of blue Alolan shirts and some black capri pants, Elio walked up to the clerk manning the cash register and paid for it all.

"Here's your change. Since you are our 99,999th customer, you also get a lens case for free as well!" the clerk told Elio as she pulled a small case from under the counter and put it next to his purchases.

"That's great, thank you," he told them, picking up the case and placing it into the shopping bag alongside his newly bought clothes. The clerk smiled at him.

"Thank you for your purchases. We hope to see you again!" she told him as he walked back over to Lillie, who'd put the book she was reading down and was looking at some clothes. Not wanting to disturb her, Elio went over to look at the book she was reading.

"'A Study of the Ethics of Pokémon Battling'?" Elio mused. Picking up the book one handedly, he turned it over to look at the blurb on the back. "'Pokémon battles have been fought for centuries, dating back to when our ancestors were living in caves, fighting alongside pokémon to hunt for food. But is it truly right to force pokémon to fight for us instead of alongside us?'"

"P-Professor Kukui allows me to take some of his books with me when we have to leave the lab in case we have to wait somewhere..." Elio's eyes snapped up from the book to see Lillie looking at him.

"That book sounds interesting. Sorry, here you go." Elio held the book out for her to take back off him. Lillie took it out of his hand and stored it back in her bag.

"Did you find what you wanted?" Lillie asked him as they walked back out of the shop. Elio nodded.

"Got some clothes. Clerk gave me a case full of contacts if I want to change my eye colour too," he said.

"I got one of those too! W-we have something in common now..." Lillie trailed off. The two walked in silence for a short while as they walked up the road past the Pokémon Centre. Elio soon spotted a bench and slug his bag off his shoulders onto it, Rotom and Gilgamesh flying out of the bag for some fresh air.

"Speaking of things in common... Can you tell me about yourself? I don't really know much about you, sorry," he said. Lillie stayed silent for a minute, thinking of what to say as Elio shifted the clothes and lens case into his bag.

"Well... I-I like to read. I play the flute too..." Lillie trailed off, unsure what else to tell him.

"Oh? Any books in particular?"

"...Case studies on pokémon?"

"Ah."

"What about you?" Lillie asked.

"Me? I do a bit of reading every now and again. There's this book series I like which has like cities which move around on wheels, like cars and stuff. Other than that, not much to tell. Love tinkering with stuff and I like flute music because of my mother. Can't play one too well, though," he admitted. She nodded and the two stood in awkward silence, unsure of what to say next. Gilgamesh and Rotom looked at each other, confused as to what was going on with those two.

"Well..." Elio sighed as he signalled to Gilgamesh and Rotom to hop back in the bag. "I guess it's nice to meet another flute player." He fastened the bag up, leaving a gap for Gilgamesh to peek out of. "Where's some food?" he asked as he slung it back over his shoulders.

Lillie's eyes brightened up at the prospect of food. "Oh, there's that malasada shop Hau and Regina said they were going to nearby we can go to," she babbled quickly, promptly clamping her hands over her mouth in embarrassment.

"Okay then. Lead the way." Lillie nodded, and began to walk down the road, Elio following behind.

...

Elio found himself staring at the shop in front of him. It seemed... homely. Not what he was expecting, considering most of the food shops he'd seen in Kanto were all chain restaurants.

"This is a malasada shop. They only serve malasadas, but they are amazing," Lillie explained. Elio turned to look at her.

"Malasadas?" Elio asked.

"O-oh, right. It's like a doughnut, I think," she explained. Elio nodded and walked into the shop.

"Elio!" "Howdy, Elio!" The man turned to look at the source of the voices. Hau and Regina waved at him as when he spotted them. Elio nodded at them, then looked behind him to see where Lillie was.

"Ay yo, girlie! Why you carrying around a bag like that anyway? You got something to hide?"

"We'll be taking that bag with us! We can sell whatever's in it to make a quick buck, yo!" The two louts from earlied were stood close to her, gesturing at her in some sort of bizarre ritual.

Elio was back outside in a instant. "That bag's staying with the girl. Who are you two, anyway?" Elio demanded, stepping in front of Lillie and immediately getting in the green eyed lout's face.

"Yo, I'm B, the baddest grunt in Team Skull!" the brown eyed lout next to him declared.

"I'm A, the most awesome-est grunt of Team Skull! You better step back because we ain't afraid of a fight, yo!" the green eyed one answered, his eyes narrowing at Elio.

"A and B? Those are some odd names."

"Ay yo, don't diss my name, man! It's all I got!" B retorted, shoving Elio in the chest. Gilgamesh unzipped the bag and prepared to launch himself out when-

"Elio! What's going on here?" Regina asked as she ran out of the shop.

"Some punks tried to take Lillie's bag," he explained.

"This don't concern you, lady! Now bug out or we'll give you the same beatdown we're gonna give this man!" A warned her, stepping menacingly towards Regina.

Regina wasn't having none of it. "I ain't about to back out of a scrap! Sienna, let's show these city folk how the wild children of Poni Island deal with thugs!" She declared. Sienna ran up next to her and let out a loud howl, declaring a challenge to the two grunts.

"Now you in for it, yo! Zee, go!" B yelled, throwing a nest ball in the air and unleashing a drowzee.

"I ain't gonna sit this out! Zuzu, you go!" A ordered, throwing up a nest ball of his own and sending out a zubat.

"Elio, mind lending a hand?" Regina asked him.

Elio nodded. "Aleister, deal with this!" he ordered, throwing a Poké Ball out to send out the litten.

"P-please, don't get hurt on my behalf!" Lillie begged them. Elio turned around and smiled at her, his eyes shining bright blue.

"Don't worry. We'll be fine." he told her before turning to face the grunts, his frown returning and eyes cloudy grey once more. "Bring it!"

"Zee, use Pound on that litten!" B ordered. Zee lumbered over to Aleister, hand beginning to glow gray as she charged.

"Aleister, dodge and use Ember," Elio commanded. Aleister dodged the drowzee's attempt to hit him and blasted her backside with a fireball, earning a scream of pain from her.

"Sienna, Rock Throw on the drowzee now!" Regina yelled. Sienna let out a yip of acknowledgement, conjuring up a ring of rocks around her tail with a nasty smirk on her face, before leaping into the air and launching them at Zee, who let out more yelps of pain and tried to cover her head from the barrage.

"Don't forget about me, yo! Zuzu, use Bite on the rockruff!" A yelled. Zuzu charged at the rockruff, teeth glowing gray as she flew closer to it.

"Ember on the zubat, Aleister!" The litten launched another fireball at Zuzu, intercepting the bat and earning a screech from him as he flew weakly over Regina, burn marks covering his body.

"Rock Throw again!" Sienna launched another barrage at Zee, who once again cowered under the stones being thrown at her. The two grunts started whispering in panicked tones to each other about something.

"Zee, use Pound on the rockruff, yo!" B ordered. The drowzee got up and began lumbering over to where Sienna was stood, who let out a short yap and bared her teeth.

"Ember again!" "Rock Throw!" The two attacks smashed into Zee, electing another scream of pain that eventually petered out as she slumped to the floor, defeated.

" _That's one_ ," Elio thought. " _Where's the other?"_

"Zuzu, get the girl to drop the bag, yo! Bite!" Elio and Regina looked behind them in alarm as Zuzu dove at Lillie with glowing grey teeth, electing a shriek of horror from her.

" _How dare you attack a bystander?!"_ Gilgamesh roared at Zuzu as he launched himself out of the bag at the bat, colliding full force into him with a Tackle and knocking the zubat off course, forcing him to pull out of the dive.

" _I'm just doing what I'm told! Don't hate me man!"_ Zuzu yelled back at him.

" _Inexcusable! Unacceptable!_ ** _Sacred Sword!_** _"_ Gilgamesh yelled out as he charged at Zuzu, a ethereal brown blade extending from his body as he executed a downward slash, blasting the zubat to the ground and knocking him out cold.

"Oh, crap! Zuzu, get back!" A cried out as he returned his fallen pokémon.

"You too, Zee!" B yelled as he returned his pokémon. Both grunts looked at the group in front of them, now staring them down, dark grey and narrowed brown eyes glaring at them.

"Y-yo, these guys are too tough to beat!" A exclaimed.

"Ay yo, this is why we should stick to just taking amulets and stickers! We ain't good at straight up thievery, yo!" B told his partner.

"Yo yo, you right! No more taking bags now, we just gonna stick to ruining people's island challenges like we should do!" A replied to him.

"But we are the baddest and most awesome-est members of Team Skull, you better remember that, yo!" B turned tail and ran off down the road away from the trio, A following suit. Elio and Regina watched them until they turned a corner away from them, and then immediately turned around and ran over to Lillie, who'd collapsed onto her knees after Zuzu's attempted attack.

"Lillie, they are gone now, you are safe," Elio reassured her. She nodded her head and looked down at the ground as she tried to stand up again, her body quivering in shock from the ordeal.

"Elio, help me help her up," Regina told the boy, who nodded and walked over to kneel at her side. Gently taking hold of her arm, Elio glanced at Regina, who was knelt down on her other side holding her other arm.

"One, two, three!" Both trainers pulled the girl up to her feet.

"P-p-please, I-I'm okay..." Lillie stammered. Elio bent down to pick up her hat which had fallen off in the action and held it out to her as Regina checked her over to make sure she wasn't injured.

"Come on, Hau's still probably stuffing his face." Regina told them with a hint of annoyance in her voice as she walked into the shop with Sienna at her side. Elio stuck the hat on Lillie's head, drawing her attention to him.

"T-t-thank you..." She said. Elio shrugged.

"Just helping out a friend," he told her, electing a surprised look from her even as she still shook. "So, food?" Lillie gave a short nod and the duo walked into the shop, Elio holding the door to allow Gilgamesh, Lillie and Aleister in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Did I go too far with the grunts? I wanted to go in a different direction with that scene because I felt like they came off as straight up goofballs initally. I wanted instead for them to be more like proper thugs at first, then become the goofballs people remember them as the story rolls along.
> 
> There will be an explaination for Gilgamesh knowing Sacred Sword so early next chapter. Hopefully it will make sense.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Be sure to leave a favourite, a follow and a review telling me what you thought!


	6. Chapter 6: Making Big Waves

** Chapter 6:  ** ** Making Big Waves **

"So you just stayed here stuffing your face with malasadas while we were helping her?" Regina's eyes burned a hole through Hau as she loomed over him, hands planted firmly on the table as she asked him the question.

After having dealt with the Team Skull grunts, Regina had gone back inside to find Hau helping himself to her malasada. Needless to say, she wasn't impressed by Hau choosing food over Lillie. The lady in question was currently attempting to eat a malasada of her own, trying to ignore the argument that was quickly escalating next to her.

"W-What? You two had things in hand out there. You didn't need my help," Hau protested as he tried to make himself as small as he could to escape Regina's fury. Regina's eyes narrowed even further as Elio and Gilgamesh glanced at each other, Gil rolling its eye at him.

"Gil wouldn't have had to get involved if you were out there, Hau..." Elio remarked.

"Come on, man! It's a malasada!" Hau looked pleadingly at Lillie. "I'm sure she understands!" Lillie looked down at the table and refused to meet his eyes. "Okay, fine. I am sorry for not running out there to help you guys. Happy?"

"Say it sincerely and then I'll accept it." Regina retorted.

"Oh come on!"

"Two big malasadas for the man and woman who were outside battling earlier!" Elio snapped his eyes from the argument to look at the cashier, who was holding out two wrapped packages.

"I didn't order one yet..." Elio mused as he stood up and walked over to them.

"You were the man who was battling outside earlier, right? That man over there paid for these for you and your friend," the cashier explained as he pointed at a pink haired man sat at a table not far from where Hau and the others were now sitting.

"Thank you. I'll go and thank him in a moment," Elio told them as he took the malasadas and walked back to where the group was sat. Regina was sat back down but the fury on her face said that she wasn't satisfied with Hau's apology.

"Woo! We got more malasada!" Hau cheered as he shot back up to his seat. Elio could've sworn Hau was about to start drooling at the sight of the ones he was holding.

"For me and Regina. The pink haired man over there bought them for us." Elio passed Regina her malasada and gestured to the table the man was sat at.

"Awww."

"That looks like Ilima, the captain of the Verdant Cavern trial," Lillie said. Elio unwrapped the malasada he had been given and tore a small chunk of it off and popped it in his mouth.

"The captain?" Regina asked.

"Yeah, the trials have captains who oversee them." Hau explained.

"Like gym leaders in other regions." Lillie finished explaining Elio swallowed the chunk of malasada he was eating and pushed it away, shaking his head.

"You don't like it?" Regina asked. Elio nodded.

Hau's face twisted into a scandalized expression. "How can you not like malasadas? They are the best things in the world, yeah!" he asked, voice laced with disbelief. Elio just shrugged and stood up to walk over to the table the man who had bought it was sat at.

"Thank you for buying those for me and my friend. Why?" he asked.

The man looked at him and smiled. "Straight to the point. Interesting. As for the reason, I was impressed by how you two battled. You singled out a target and took it down with impressive ease," he explained.

"I see."

"I should introduce myself. Captain Ilima of the Verdant Cavern trial. It's a pleasure to meet you," Ilima said as he stood up and held his hand out to Elio.

"Elio Solaris." He looked at llima's hand until the captain lowered it awkwardly. "If you are the captain, then I want to battle you."

"Of course. I've already seen you battle, so I'm eager to see how you fare against me. Shall we?" Ilima walked past Elio and out of the doors of the shop.

"Be back shortly. Gil, stay with them til I get back," Elio told the others as he swung by the table and grabbed his bag before walking out of the doors after Ilima, leaving the trio sat at the table.

"So, Hau, where were we?" Regina's eyes narrowed once more as the man shrank back into his chair from trying to grab Elio's malasada.

"Come on, Regina! I already said sorry!"

...

"So, are you ready, Elio?" Ilima asked, Great Ball in hand. Elio nodded and held up a Poké Ball. The pair were stood outside the malasada shop where Elio had fought the grunts earlier, facing each other. Ilima wore a confident grin, while Elio's face was fixed in it's usual stoic demeanour, his eyes a darker grey than normal as he sized up his opponent.

"One against one, first to faint loses. Aleister, take care of this!" Elio ordered as he threw the Poké Ball into the air, unleashing the litten onto the battlefield.

"A litten. I heard about how you two met. Gaston, if you'd please!" Ilima called out as he threw the Great Ball, which released a smeargle onto the field.

"Rotom, record the new pokémon," Elio ordered. _'Smeargle can use any move in the world. I need to be careful here and figure out what he knows,'_ he thought. "Ilima, take the first move."

"With pleasure. Gaston, Pound!" Ilima ordered. Gaston launched himself forward before spinning around and whipping its tail towards Aleister, the tip of the tail glowing grey as it hurtled towards the litten.

"Dodge and use Ember!" Elio commanded. Aleister jumped backward to avoid the whip style Pound before launching a fireball towards Gaston.

Ilima's grin got wider. "Water Gun!" Gaston yanked back his tail and opened his mouth, launching a torrent of water towards the Ember, instantly dousing it and blasting Aleister back with a screech.

"Aleister, can you continue?" Elio asked his pokémon. Aleister stood up very shakily, before letting out a furious yowl as a flaming red aura blazed around him as he fixed Gaston with a furious glare, who returned it with a goofy smile.

"I see Aleister has a tremendous fighting spirit." Ilima noted. "Let us see if it will be enough to win! Water Gun!" Smeargle launched another torrent of water at Aleister.

Dodge and get in close! Scratch!" Elio ordered. Aleister leapt to the right to avoid the incoming Water Gun before charging forward towards Gaston and driving his sharpened claws across his body, knocking him back.

"Ember, quickly!" Empowered by Blaze, Aleister conjured up a massive fireball and launched it at Gaston, the smeargle being blasted back by the move exploding on him. When the smoke cleared, Gaston was on one knee, his goofy expression replaced with one of pain.

"Gaston?" Gaston forced himself back onto his feet, now glaring in annoyance at Aleister. "Let's wrap this up. Water Gun!" Gaston launched another blast of water at Aleister.

"Scratch!" Once more, Aleister dodged to the side and launched himself at Gaston, claws extending and growing grey as he closed the gap.

"And it's over. Pound!" Gaston's tail glowed grey as he launched it into Aleister, blasting the litten in the face and knocking it out cold.

"Aleister!" Elio ran over to him and scooped him up gently. "You okay?" Aleister let out a small meow, signifying he was okay.

"Impressive for a new trainer. Most lose quite quickly to Gaston, so I have to say, you did well there," Ilima told him as he returned the smeargle.

"We lost again, though." Elio looked down at the ground.

"Even aipom fall from trees. They just pick themselves back up and start climbing again. I have to ask, why are you undertaking the island challenge?" Ilima asked.

Elio shrugged. "Aleister wants to get stronger. Volkner, my grubbin, wants to experience the island challenge for himself. And Gilgamesh-"

"I didn't ask about your pokémon's reasons." Ilima cut him off. "I'm asking about yours."

"I-I don't really know..." Elio mumbled as his shoulders sagged at the realisation. _'What kind of trainer sets out on a journey like this without a reason why? Come on, Elio!_ ' he chided himself mentally.

"Oh? You actually set out on a journey like this for your pokémon? How surprising." Ilima clipped Gaston's Great Ball back onto his belt and began to walk away. "Some start their challenge with a reason in mind. Others realise why they are on the challenge as they go. You'll find your reason in time, I'm sure." llima told him.

"Wait! What about the trial?" Elio shouted.

Ilima waved a hand as he continued to walk away. "Whenever you and your friends are ready!" he called, leaving Elio to stand alone and look at his pokémon.

...

"Here, Aleister. This should make you feel better," Lillie held out a Revive out to Aleister, who gently took it out of her hand and started eating it. His face contorted into one of absolute disgust before he shot up into the air, letting out an happy meow, signifying he was healthy again, before his face contorted back to disgust as Aleister let out a disgusted meow.

"Aleister says the Revive tasted like one of Hala's old shoes, zzzt!" Rotom translated, causing everyone except Elio to cringe.

"By the Tapu... I'd rather not think about what Tutu's shoes taste like." Hau grimaced.

"Well... They do say the worse it tastes the better it is for you." Lillie noted.

"Y'all should try a Revival Herb then."

Lillie looked at Elio, who was staring off out the window. "Elio, is everything okay?" she asked him, causing him to jerk and look at her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He told her. Lillie didn't look convinced, but opted not to pursue the issue.

"So, what are we doing?" Hau asked now.

"Well, we've got the trial in Verdant Cavern. We should take Route 2 and head for there." Elio explained as Rotom called up the map of the route. Hau and Regina nodded.

Lillie however shook her head. "The professor's asked me to meet him here in Hau'oli. He wants to do some more research out in the field and so he wants me along to help him out with it..." she explained.

"I'll stay here and make sure you meet up with the Professor safely. Don't want to risk you running into more of those grunts," Elio told her.

Lillie shook her head again. "I-I'll be fine! He won't be too long, and you'll run late for your trial..." she protested.

"I won't be late. Hau, you know how to get to the trial?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'll show Regina the way there too," Hau answered.

"Fine with me. It's better if someone stayed in case they did try something again," Regina said. Elio looked at Lillie expectantly. Reluctantly, she nodded.

"Alright, let's get moving. We'll see you at the trial site, Elio!" Hau told him as he attempted to clamber over Elio. "Erm... Excuse me," he said. Elio stood up to let him out. "Thank you!" Hau prepared to bolt out the door before Regina grabbed him by the back of his t-shirt.

"You ain't leaving us to foot the bill!" Regina told him as she pulled him back, ignoring his protests. While Elio was distracted watching the scene unfold in front of him, Lillie slowly grabbed the remains of his malasada and stowed it in her bag after wrapping it back up.

" _Probably better with you than Hau, anyway,_ " Gilgamesh commented. Lillie pretended not to hear that.

...

"You didn't have to wait with me..." Lillie mumbled.

"Rather make sure you were safe." Elio said.

They were sat on a bench outside the Pokémon Centre, waiting for the professor to arrive. Both had their bags on their laps, with Gilgamesh and Nebby asleep in their respective bags. Lillie was finishing off the last of Elio's malasada as they waited.

"How long did he say he would be?" Elio asked now. Lillie pulled out her phone to check something.

"He said about an hour... That was an hour ago," she lamented.

"He'll probably show up in a moment."

"Y-yeah. Probably was busy fighting with rockruff again." That drew a snort and a smirk out of Elio.

"Oh yeah! About time someone got a smile out of you!" A voice hollered from down the road, causing Elio's smirk to vanish and Lillie to quickly finish the malasada, stand up and walk towards the source of the voice. "Was starting to think you didn't know how to! Anyway, how are you, Lillie? Hau'oli been good to you?" The professor turned to his assistant, who shook her head.

"I-I ran into Team Skull..." Lillie explained.

"Team Skull? Those guys? Why? You aren't a trial goer..." Kukui asked.

"I don't know. They tried to take my bag..." Lillie mumbled.

"...They must be getting less cautious, yeah... I'll need to talk to Hala and Nanu, see why they are getting more active," Kukui muttered to himself.

Seeing that the professor was here, Elio stood up to walk away. "Alright. I'm going to head off," he told them.

"Elio!" The man in question turned to face the professor. "I got another upgrade for Rotom, yeah!"

"Upgrade?" Elio asked, but he unzipped the bag and pulled Rotom out of it and held it out to the professor.

"Thank you. Here, this should only take a second... Rotom, can you hop out the dex for a minute?" Kukui pulled a small pen drive out of his pocket as he talked. Rotom woke up to see the professor holding a pen drive, and exited the dex to float next to Elio, leaving it in Kukui's hand. Opening a small port in the top of the dex, Kukui inserted the pen drive into the port and tapped the screen a few times, before removing the pen drive, closing the port and holding the pokédex out for Rotom to hop back in.

"Zzzrt! Installing, installing... Installation complete! Rotophone function enabled!" Rotom declared.

"Roto...phone?" Lillie asked.

"I couldn't think of any better names for it. With the Rotophone function, you are able to call people on the Rotom Dex! It might sound mundane, but it means you won't need to buy a mobile phone to call people now!" The professor explained.

"That's... Actually quite useful. Why wasn't that installed in the first place?" Elio asked.

"Well, it's meant to be a pokédex, not a mobile device," Kukui explained. "But in any case, my number's already in Rotom's contacts, yeah!"

"I see." Elio looking at his contacts. So far, only two were listed. Professor Kukui, and Hau. "Hmm..." Elio looked at Lillie, then back at Rotom. "Lillie, can I get your number for this thing?" he asked.

"Uh, y-yeah, sure," Lillie pulled out her phone and brought up her number and held it out to Elio. Elio quickly added it to his contacts list and set it to dial her number. After a short moment, her phone began to ring.

"One more thing," Elio said as Rotom ended the call. "Can I borrow that book?" he asked.

"O-of course. I have others I can read," she told him, quickly digging the book out of her bag and passing it to him.

"Thank you. Please, stay safe," he told them before he walked away with Rotom in tow and book in hand. Kukui and Lillie waved goodbye to him as he left.

"Is it just me or has he warmed up a bit since the festival?" Kukui asked.

...

After a short encounter with a tauros, Elio was on the road again. Walking out of Hau'oli, Elio was greeted by the sight of grassy patches and multiple trees adorned by various types of berries, with people running inbetween them, some battling, others exploring.

"Well." Elio grabbed two Poké Balls out. "Better start getting ready for the trial. Aleister, Volkner, go fight and get stronger!" He ordered, throwing them into the air and letting them out of their poké balls. Upon landing on the ground, they charged into the grass to battle against any opponents in their path. Noting their eagarness to battle, Elio continued walking down the route, hands in pockets, observing the world around him as Rotom flew around, taking photos and recording data on the new pokémon in the area.

" _This is_ _the right road towards the meadow. I remember this route from my younger years,"_ Gilgamesh told Elio.

"Younger years? You are a honedge, you can't be that old," Elio said. A metallic scraping noise which sounded like laughter enaminated from the bag.

" _You don't know how we breed, do you?"_ Gilgamesh asked.

"You lay eggs, same as most pokémon, right?"

" _Only domesticated honedge lay eggs, and only with the help of ditto. In the wild, honedge breed when they evolve into doublade. Some of us who find dusk stones evolve into aegislash, but most of us remain doublade until the two halves of a doublade have had enough of each other. Then we undergo mitosis,"_ Gilgamesh explained.

"Mitosis?" Elio asked.

" _We split into two honedge and go our seperate ways."_

"So you were once a doublade?"

" _Yes. A very strong one, but my partner took most of our strength with them when we split. While I retain the knowledge I gained before, I don't have enough power on my own."_ Gilgamesh looked away at that.

"That's why you know Sacred Sword even though you aren't that strong." Elio realised.

" _Yes."_

"Crab-brab!" The cry of a mysterious pokémon drew Elio's attention to his feet.

"Huh..." Elio kneeled down to inspect the creature. It was purple, and it's hands resembled boxing gloves. "Rotom!" Elio called. "What is this?"

Rotom flew over to Elio and scanned the pokémon. "Zzzzt! That is a crabrawler! It's known as the boxing pokémon! Its hard pincers are well suited to both offense and defense. Fights between two crabrawler are like boxing matches! Zzt zzrt!" Rotom explained. The crabrawler started walking away from Elio, heading toward a cliff edge. Elio followed the pokémon towards the cliff, only to notice a slope leading down the cliff.

"Crab!" The crabrawler gestured down the slope.

"Down there?" Elio asked. The crabrawler jiggled its pincers in the air before scuttling off towards a nearby building. "Aleister! Volkner! Come here!" he ordered. In a moment, the two came scuttling out of the grass, Aleister looking beat up but still eager while Volkner looked tired, but stronger.

"Come on," he said as he knelt down pulling out a potion. Squirting it on them both quickly, the two let out cries of happiness as they got more of their energy back. "Where does this lead, then?" he wondered as he began walking down the sloping path with Aleister, Volkner and Gilgamesh following after him.

...

At the bottom of the slope, Elio was greeted by the sight of a beautiful beach, with the clear blue ocean extending out as far as he could see. People dressed in swimwear wandered around, with two of them manning stalls, which, to Elio, looked strange, as they didn't have any obvious merchandise on them. A sign nearby read "Big Wave Beach", which told Elio where he was.

The sound of someone whooping drew his attention. Walking towards the sea Elio watched as two figures surfed along a wave towards the beach, with one rocketing up off the wave on a mantine, perform a backwards flip and land on the mantine, before riding the wave back down towards the beach. The second figure attempted to copy the first one, but ended up falling into the wave with a girly scream.

"Pretty impressive for a newbie, right?" Elio's head snapped to the where the voice came from. A tanned man in swimtrunks had walked up next to him and had been observing the surfers alongside him. "Those guys are Mantine Surfers! They use mantine to ride the waves and catch some air!" he explained.

"Oh." Elio looked back at where the surfers were. The second person was back on their mantine now and cruising towards the beach, with the first person cruising after them.

"Woo! Elio! Did you see me on that wave?" Hau called out as he jumped off his mantine and ran up to him.

"You were the one who fell and screamed, right?" Elio asked. Hau sheepishly rubbed his head as the surfer next to Elio laughed.

"You did pretty good to ride up the wave on your first go. You'll get the hang of it in time," he said, before walking away to talk to the other surfer.

"I didn't think the beach would be your thing, Elio. How come you are here?" Hau asked.

"There was this-"

"Ay yo, you'd better be ready for the mischief masters of Team Skull to do some mantine surfing too!" The yelling of someone else interrupted Elio and drew their attention elsewhere. Stood atop a rocky hill were two buffoons clad in white caps and black tops, with chains dangling around their necks.

"Team Skull?" Elio asked.

"Oh yeah, it's Team Skull! Didn't they get banned from mantine surfing?" Hau asked as the two grunts walked down the hill onto the beach.

"It's A and B, isn't it? You know you guys can't ride here," one of the surfers told them.

"What's up with that?! We look like kids to you or somethin'?!" B exploded at the poor lady.

"No. The real reason is..." the lady stood undaunted.

"Yeah, the real reason is?" A asked now.

"Every time you try, you keep up those ridiculous moves on mantine's back, and then you end up in the water. You could get hurt if we kept letting you!" she explained.

"Ay yo, you want us to stop dancing?! That's our identity! It's all we got!" B yelled again.

"Yo, you know we can't afford the insurance so you ain't letting us go? That's so lame! Yo, forget her B!" A told his friend.

"We're Team Skull! We're the baddest and most awesome-est members of Team Skull! Nobody can stop us acting hard headed!" B declared. With that, the two charged towards the mantine that Hau had recently used.

"Somebody keep those numbskulls away from the mantine before they get hurt!" the lady yelled out.

"Hau, come on." Elio started walking towards the grunts, only to be stopped by Hau putting his arm in front of him.

"Nah. You've dealt with these guys already. I'll take care of this!" Hau declared. Elio nodded and stepped back, leaving Hau to handle them.

"Hey, Team Skull! It's been a while!" Hau shouted out as he walked over to where the two grunts were performing their bizarre ritual next to the mantine.

"Who're you talking to, man?" The grunts turned to face Hau. "Huh... No... Wait, wait! You're Hau!" B yelled out.

"That's right! Prepare to battle, numbskulls!" Hau threw out a poké ball, deploying Rowlet in front of him. The owl fluttered over to land on Hau's shoulder, fixing the grunts with a glare.

"You wanna scrap, big guy? I'm up for a scrap! Zee, go!" B hurled up the nest ball containing Zee, who let out a cry of determination as she emerged.

Rowlet immediately launched herself into the air. Hau ordered her to perform a Leafage, which caused Zee to scream in pain as the leaves blasted her backwards. B ordered a Pound, but as Rowlet was flying in the air, all Drowzee could do was flail desperately at the owl from the ground. Content with the aerial advantage, Hau ordered Rowlet to continue using Leafage, the leaves knocking Zee about until she collapsed to the ground, defeated.

"Yo, I'm feelin' mad annoyed that my team just got destroyed, bro," B grumbled as he returned Zee.

"Seriously, home slice? You're too strong for a newbie, yo!" A complained.

"Really? Wow, thanks!" Hau said, smiling happily at the comment.

"Yo we gotta go get Zuzu and Zee better then we gonna make some one else's life miserable to feel better! Let's go mess with llima again, B!" A told his friend.

"I'm down with that, Verdant Cavern's pretty close by anyway." B stalked off, ignoring Elio as he walked past.

"Hey, you! You lot better listen to what my homie says and drill it into those thick skulls of yours! We in Team Skull ain't to be messed with! Seriously! You better not forget, numbskulls!" A yelled as he ran off after B.

"Nice one, Hau!"

"You really are like your grandfather."

"That was amazing!"

"Aw, thanks guys!" Hau looked down at the ground, embarrassed at the compliments he was recieving.

Noting that the scene in front of him was going to go on for a while, Elio turned around and began to walk away from the beach.

"Come on guys, we need to train. I doubt the trial is going to be easy," he muttered to his team.

"Zzrt? Elio, is something wrong?" Rotom asked him. The man looked at the floating pokédex, dark grey eyes looking past it.

"No. I'm fine," he told it.

' _I could've done that much quicker._ ' He thought to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: So, we're out of Hau'oli and on our way to Verdant Cavern! Wonder how the trial will go?
> 
> I came up with the headcanon of doublade splitting apart to reproduce after thinking about how genderless pokémon such as magnezone and metagross would reproduce in the wild, when I realised that pokémon like that combine with more of their kin when they evolve, so theoretically, if they are separated again, they could produce more of them.
> 
> Just because Lea is a flabébé doesn't mean she's a baby, same with Gilgamesh. It's a team dynamic I've wanted to try out since I was working on The Days of Sun, having the fresh faced newbies working with and learning from the older members of the team.
> 
> There's a potential idea I want to run past you guys who have read this far. I'm considering combining a lot of the different Team Skull grunts that we meet outside of the grunts in Po Town into just three grunts, A, B, and a third one we haven't met yet, since it allows me to focus on giving those three character development. What do you guys think? Should I just have those three or should I stick to having all the different ones? There would be a plot reason for it, of course. Let me know in the review section what you think!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Be sure to favourite, follow and review letting me know what you thought!


	7. Chapter 7: The First Trial

 

**Chapter 7: The First Trial**

"The local flabebé population seem to be riled up, yeah..." Professor Kukui made a note in his notebook as he observed the flurry of activity currently going on in the meadow.

After Elio had left, the professor and Lillie had taken Route 3 to the Melemele Meadow to perform some fieldwork the professor had been putting off. Having arrived in the meadow, they had immediately noticed the cutiefly and furfrou scurrying around frantically.

"What do you think could be wrong?" Lillie asked.

"This level of activity suggests that someone important has vanished... Possibly a member of the family in charge of the meadow..." Kukui continued to make notes in his notebook as some oriocorio ran past Lillie.

"Someone vanished? Could that mean they were captured by a trainer?" Lillie asked.

"Maybe, but they'd have to be someone not from around here to know that the meadow is a preservation area, since the locals know they are not allowed to capture pokémon from here." the professor explained.

Then a lightbulb went off in his head.

"Lillie, have you talked to Elio at all?" Kukui turned to his assistant.

"Not much, just him asking questions about Aleister's diet and us just talking... Why?" Lillie asked, confusion on her face.

"So he hasn't been here yet?"

"No. And I know what you are going to ask, and no. He wouldn't do that."

"We don't even know him that well, Lillie. For all we know-"

"He hasn't stolen a pokémon from the meadow, professor." The firmness in Lillie's voice surprised Kukui, and he chose to not pursue the matter any further. A buzzing sound came from the professor's pocket, and he pulled out his phone to look at the text.

"By the Tapu..." He put his phome back in his pocket. "It's Ilima. He says we need to get to Route 2, Elio, Hau and Regina should be about to undergo their first trials by now, yeah! Come along Lillie!" The professor called as he began to jog out the meadow.

"C-coming!" Lillie prepared to follow after the professor but stopped upon noticing that her bag was open. "How did... oh no! Nebby? Nebby, where are you?" Lillie hissed as she looked around frantically for the creature.

...

"...While today's trainers choose rather to hang back and let their pokémon battle for them, the techniques listed in this book can still be used by those who wish to learn the ways of ancient trainers..."

Cross-legged in a booth, Elio was sat. The book he had borrowed off of Lillie was open on the table in front of him, Aleister curled up on the table next to it. Grey eyes scanned the contents, eagerly absorbing the information written in it.

"...One such group, which originated from Kalos, were fond of using the honedge line as weapons. By establishing a spirit link with their partner, they could offer their life force to increase the power of their moves while the trainer welded them... Wait, I thought honedge just sapped the life force of anyone that tried to use them as a weapon?" Elio asked Gilgamesh, who was floating opposite Elio and looking over the book as well.

" _They do if it's a person they aren't familiar with. But even I was unaware of this... Perhaps the Kalosians know of the spirit link, but I've never heard any of the Alolans mentioning this,"_ Gilgamesh observed.

"So, if I was to-"

" _Elio, I am not your pokémon. If you try to use me as a weapon, I will not hesitate to hurt you."_ Gilgamesh cut him off.

"I'll keep that in mind, then. But still, it definitely sounds like a technique we should remember, just in case." Elio pulled up the Rotonote function on Rotom's screen and started typing on the keyboard. "Spirit link, can use life force to increase Gil's power if I caught it," Elio muttered to himself. Gilgamesh sighed, producing a quiet metallic scrape and looked at the table underneath it.

"...Alolans often took advantage of vikavolt's natural electrical organs and ability to use charjabug as batteries to improve their firepower as long range artillery fire for use on fellow opponents, which resulted in the increased usage of alolan marowak in decoy attacks, as their natural abilities to serve as lightning rods and be unaffected by the electricity allowed them to thwart attempts at long range fire and to distract the enemy as they would be forced to eliminate the marowaks first to be able to provide long range fire support again... Rotom, what's a vikavolt?" Elio asked the floating pokédex.

"Zzt! Vikavolt is the stag beetle pokémon, and the final evolved form of grubbin! It zips around while on sharp lookout for an opening. It concentrates electrical energy within its large jaws and uses it to zap its enemies! It is quite the fearsome pokémon, zzrt!" Rotom explained.

"Final evolved form of grubbin?" Elio looked down at the larva pokémon which was snuggled up next to him. "So, Volkner could become that thing?" he asked.

"Yep! Zzrt!"

"Huh. Volkner, do you want to be a vikavolt?" Elio asked him. Volkner loooked up and him and let out a short chitter.

"He says maybe." Rotom translated.

"Oh." Elio scratched Volkner's back for a few moments. "That's fine, it's up to you if you do." Volkner let out a short, relaxed chitter at that and snuggled up against Elio again.

Elio had arrived outside of Verdant Cavern to find a trial guide standing outside. When he asked about the trial, he had been told there was someone already undergoing the trial, and that someone else was already scheduled to go after them.

"So when's the next free slot?" he had asked.

"Two hours from now," the guide told him.

" _Two hours? We'll have to camp in the meadow if we want to be there in time for the wedding,_ " Gilgamesh had warned Elio.

"That's fine. We can wait," Elio told the guide, who nodded and made a note on his clipboard.

Elio had begun to walk toward the Pokémon Centre before a man and a woman dressed in strange outfits had walked in front of him and blocked his way.

"I see... So this must be Verdant Cavern... It is one of the places in this land filled with the Blinding One's power... Most certainly worth our investigating!" the smaller of the two had declared. "Yup! The aura levels are really high!"

"Calm yourself, Zossie." the taller of the two warned the one called Zossie. "It will be difficult for us to investigate it, though, since we do not use pokémon of our own... We will have to think of some other way. Perhaps we can use our technology to find a way to control pokémon..." they mused.

"Maybe I could go in as a trial-goer? Take on the trial and everything? Though I don't have one of those island challenge thingies..." Zossie moaned.

"Excuse me, may I get past?" Elio asked them. The two looked at him and promptly stepped aside, apologising for blocking his path.

"Rotom, what is the "Blinding One"?" Elio had whispered as he walked back to the Pokémon Center.

"Zzrt? Searching for the Blinding One... Found it, zzt! The Blinding One was a Johtonian trainer famed for pioneering the tactic of using voltorb that knew Flash and Explosion to take down tricky opponents in battle!" Rotom explained.

"That doesn't sound right... Remind me to ask the professor about it when we next see him," Elio had told him.

And now Elio was sat reading a book while waiting for the time to tick by until it was time for his trial. His face told all who looked that he was concentrating on the book in front of him, but the pokémon around him knew otherwise.

" _You are nervous. Is it for the trial?"_ Gilgamesh asked. Elio nodded.

"No. Of course not. Why would I be nervous for the trial?" Elio looked at the honedge in confusion.

" _You are focussing way too intently on the book, like you are trying to distract yourself from something."_ Gilgamesh observed, which drew an annoyed look from Elio.

"It's my first trial. I've already lost to Hau and Ilima, and I have no idea what actually happens in a trial. Yes, I'm nervous so yes, I'm trying to distract myself," Elio hissed at Gilgamesh.

" _Don't get annoyed at me, Elio. I'm just being observant. You'll do fine."_ Gilgamesh reassured him. Elio rolled his eyes and muttered an apology, and went back to reading the book, until Rotom tapped him on his shoulder to show him it was time.

"Oh. It's time, guys." Elio closed the book and shoved it back in his bag, slinging it onto his shoulders as he stood up. Pulling out Volkner's and Aleister's Poké Balls, he returned them as Rotom and Gilgamesh hopped into their compartment. Setting the Poké Balls back on his belt, Elio began walking towards the doors.

...

"Hey, Elio!" Hau greeted him as he walked up to the entrance to Verdant Cavern.

"Hau. You already done it?" Elio asked him. Hau pulled a white crystal out of his pocket and struck a pose, his smile reflecting slightly off the surface.

"Oh yeah! I got this for clearing it! This baby is the Normalium Z!" Hau stood back up and put the crystal back in his pocket.

"And Regina...?" Elio looked rather intently at the ground to hide his face as he asked.

"She has already cleared it," Ilima explained as he walked down the path from the cave. "The trial is read-"

"Then let's go." Elio stomped past Ilima into the cave, cutting off Ilima's speech and leaving a bewildered Hau and Ilima behind.

"Erm, Elio? Elio! Wait, Elio!" Ilima called after him as he raced into the cave after him, leaving Hau looking on in utter confusion.

...

The cavern was massive, and had patches of vegatation growing in spots across the cave. In the middle of the cave a stone bridge arced between the two sides of the cave. It seemed to be the only way across.

"Elio! Elio!" Ilima called as he ran after him into the cave.

"Right, what do I need to do?" Elio asked as he turned to see the captain running after him.

"I'll explain what you need to do in a moment but first, did you heal up your team?" Ilima asked.

"No, but they didn't take any damage before I got in here, so they should be fine," Elio explained. Ilima shook his head.

"Elio, the Verdant Cavern is a trial site. Once you are in here, you can't leave unless you forfeit the trial and if you forfeit, you'll have to reschedule another attempt later," Ilima explained as Elio groaned in annoyance at his mistake.

" _Better get it right on your first attempt, Elio,_ " Gilgamesh warned him.

"Now, let me formally welcome you to Verdant Cavern! I am your captain, Ilima. Allow me to explain the basics of my trial. What you should attempt to do is-" The pitter-patter of paws on the ground drew Ilima's attention behind him to a yungoos. Upon spotting the captain and Elio, the yungoos bolted for a hidey-hole and hid itself, briefly poking its head out to look around. "-to defeat three of the pokémon that lurk here in their dens! Then, reach the pedestal deep in the cave and collect the Z-Crystal there! You'll need to be completely in sync with your pokémon to succeed here," Ilima explained.

"Got it, let's-" Elio's attempt to get moving was stopped as a hellacious roar rang though the cavern, causing him to take a step backwards in alarm.

"Oh dear! There's one other thing I forgot to mention. While many strong pokémon make their home in this cave, there is one stronger and more fearsome pokémon than all the rest. It is the Totem Pokémon of this trial. It will be the greatest obstacle you shall face in your attempt to clear my trial! This is but one of the eight trials you shall face during your island challenge."

"Got it. Shall we start?" Elio asked as he closed his eyes to focus on calming down.

Ilima nodded. "Indeed. The trial of Captain Ilima begins now!" he declared. Elio nodded and walked further into the cave.

"We can't fall behind... Where's the dens?" Elio murmured as he looked around. Quickly spotting the first den, he walked over to it amd crouched down in front of it.

"Here's one... How do we draw it out?" Elio wondered.

" _Try sticking your hand in there,"_ Gilgamesh told him sarcastically. Elio nodded, and slowly moved his hand into the den's entrance...

And the sound of teeth meeting metal rang out of the hole.

"Found it," Elio declared as he pulled the yungoos out of the den, who was dangling from his fingers with its teeth sunk in. Elio quickly grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and chucked it back on the ground before quickly releasing Volkner to take it down.

"Bug Bite!" Elio ordered. Leaping onto the charging yungoos mid Tackle, Volkner quickly started biting it as much as he could, managing to knocking it out after a few bites.

"Hau and Regina used Poké Puffs to lure them out. Might be less painful for you to do that than to stick your hand in there," Ilima warned him as he pulled his glove off to expect his hand.

" _That might be better for the pokémon too,"_ Gilgamesh said.

"I would do, but I don't have any on me," Elio grumbled as he looked over his hand. "Scuff marks... No damage." He put his glove in a pocket in his shorts and returned Volkner as he walked further into the cave until he found a second den.

"Aleister, get ready to attack," he told the litten as he released it from his poké ball as he knelt down and stuck his hand in the den. The telltale sound of teeth hitting metal rang out, and Elio yanked his arm out and pulled the second yungoos off of his hand and onto the floor.

"Use Bite!" Elio yelled. Aleister leapt towards the yungoos and sank his teeth into him, electing a growl of pain from him as he flailed around, attempting to get the cat to let go before he finally stopped and collapsed.

"That's two. Nice work, Aleister," Elio told the cat, who let out a happy yowl. "Now to find the third." Walking up the path, Elio found a third den and crouched stuck his hand in it, expecting to draw out the third one.

"There's nothing in here?" Elio wondered as he stood back up. Aleister's cry drew his attention behind him to see what looked like a yungoos disappearing into another den.

" _So these dens are connected... I need something to block off the other den entrances, then..._ " Elio thought to himself as he and Aleister walked down the slope towards the lower dens where they had last seen the creature. " _Perhaps Volkner can-_ "

" _Behind us, Elio!"_ Gilgamesh called out, causing Elio to whirl around to see two familiar looking grunts pop up at the top of the slope.

"Yo yo yo! It's your bad city boys back... back again!" The one on the left announced. "Remember us?"

"The ones who tried to steal that bag, right?" Elio asked.

"Yeah, that us! Ay yo, this fool remembers us, A!" The one on the left told his friend.

"Of course he does, B! But who cares about that anyway?! We're here to mess up his trial, yo!" A reminded B.

"I care..." B mumbled as A stalked down slope towards Elio.

"We don't have time for this... Aleister, can you end this quickly?" Elio asked the litten, who let out a determined yowl in response and hopped in front of Elio.

"First I stomp you, then I stomp that captain over there! Zee, go!" A yelled as he threw the nest ball into the air, releasing the drowzee who let out a angry cry upon spotting Elio.

"Zee, use Pound!" A ordered. Zee lumbered towards Aleister, her hand glowing grey as she got close.

"Dodge and use Ember!" Elio commanded. Aleister leapt out of the drowzee's attack and launched a fireball at her face, causing her to scream and stumble backwards while patting her face. "Bite!" Elio ordered. This time, Aleister leapt up and sunk his teeth into her snout, earning another howl of pain before Zee finally fell over backwards and Aleister jumped away, leaving her out cold on the ground.

"What's up with that?" A screeched as he returned Zee.

"For real, though?! I can't get my skull around it! Ay yo, these trial goers are mad strong!" B complained.

"Naw, it ain't even like that. They straight up dangerous, homie!" A whined.

"...Thank you," Elio mumbled as he looked down, attempting to hide his smile.

Having not heard Elio, A and B continued gesturing at each other. "I don't know, isn't this whole place trouble?" B asked.

"Yeah, it totally is, homie! I mean, that thing's so strong that regular pokémon don't even wanna come out and battle!" A told him and began to run back up the slope. B looked at A, then at Elio.

"Ay yo... Kid!" B called out as he walked over to Elio. "You know there's a mad strong pokémon lurking back there somewhere, right? I'd run if I was you!" he warned him.

"No. I need to beat that thing to keep up with the others," Elio explained.

"Naw we ain't going out like that!" A yelled out. "We gotta get our revenge! Go stand over that den and catch that skulking yungoos, yo!"

"For real?! Fine!" B grumbled. "I got no bones to pick with you!" And with that, both of them ran up the slope and covered a den each, performing their bizarre gestures in front of them.

" _You might want to stop them,"_ Gilgamesh warned him.

"Nah, they're fine. Come along, Aleister," Elio called out to the litten, who stopped watching them and ran over to the den he had last seen the creature at. Elio shoved his hand down the den for a fourth, and hopefully final time.

"Yes!" Elio cheered as the sound of teeth hitting metal rang out of the hole. Yanking his hand out of the hole, he was surprised to see it wasn't a yungoos, but a larger version which stood up on its hind legs after Elio pulled it off his hand.

"Rotom, what is that?" Elio asked as the creature hissed at him.

"Zzrt!" Rotom flew out of the bag and scanned the pokémon. "That is gumshoos, the stakeout pokémon and the evolved form of yungoos! Although it wasn’t originally found in Alola, this pokémon was brought over a long time ago when there was a huge rattata outbreak!" Rotom explained.

"I see. Aleister, use Ember on it!" Elio ordered. Aleister spat a fireball at the gumshoos, causing him to stumble backwards, but he steadied himself and glared at Aleister before launching himself at Aleister.

"Dodge and use Scratch on its leg!" Elio ordered. Aleister leapt out of the way and drove its claws across the gumshoos' leg, causing him to hiss in pain. He attempted to use Tackle again, but tripped and fell, letting out a growl of annoyance.

"Ember again! Follow up with Bite!" Elio ordered. Aleister launched a fireball at the gumshoos, causing him to howl in pain before sinking his teeth into his neck to knock him out.

" _That's three..."_ Elio thought to himself.

"Congrats, Elio!" Ilima called to him. "Now go into the deepest part to claim your prize!" Elio nodded and climbed to the top of the cave retrieving a TM as he went, before walking though the exit at the back.

Shielding his eyes from the fierce glare of the sun, Elio scanned the area around him. It appeared to be a small alcove, with a sloped path at the back. In front of him was what looked to be a pedestal, a white crystal glimmering in the center.

" _That must be the crystal_." Elio realised. He walked over to the pedestal, looking around to see if any more pokémon where in the area. He couldn't see any.

" _I don't like this, Elio,"_ Gilgamesh muttered.

"I don't either." Nevertheless, Elio reached out and gently picked up the crystal, and inspected it. It had a mysterious symbol at the centre, and was pure white.

"We have the Normalium Z..." Elio whispered as he put the crystal in his pant pocket. "How much do you reckon it could go for?" he asked Gilgamesh.

" _Don't even try to sell it. The kahuna would not be impressed,"_ Gilgameshed warned him.

Elio shrugged. "Fine... We should go and tell Ilima we have it then." Elio turned away from the pedestal and began to walk out the alcove when-

" _Elio! Behind us!"_ Gilgamesh yelled. Elio whirled around to see a gumshoos, several times larger than the last gumshoos he had encountered, stood atop the sloped path, glaring down at him.

"You must be the Totem," Elio said. As if in response, the gumshoos let out a fearsome cry, causing a blast of heat to flow out of its body and summoned two regular sided yungoos to appear next to it, before all three jumped down and stood in front of Elio, glaring at him.

"Zzzt! The gumshoos' aura flared to life! It now will take less damage from attacks that make contact than a normal gumshoos would because of it, zzrt zzrt!" Rotom warned him. Elio looked at him in alarm, and quickly grabbed a second poké ball out.

"Volkner, Aleister, deal with this!" Elio yelled out as he threw Volkner's poké ball into the air, releasing the grubbin who quickly moved to stand next to Aleister.

...

Aleister, Volkner and the gumshoos stared each other down, neither backing up an inch.

"So a little cat and a little bug have come to face my trial. How amusing. I do hope you'll be as good as that owl and those pups were," Gumshoos sneered.

"You messing with the best here!"

"You won't beat us!" The yungoos bragged.

"Aleister, this looks like a tough fight. Do you really think we can beat them?" Volkner asked hesitantly.

Aleister turned to his friend with a smirk on his face. "Beat them? We're gonna trash these guys, Volk!" he told them.

"A litten like yourself is going to trash me? I highly doubt that," Gumshoos retorted.

"You are right. A litten like myself won't trash you." The cat fixed the gumshoos with a wicked smile, one that spoke of a desire to dominantly win against him as a bright light burst into being around Aleister.

"But I'm not going to be a litten for much longer."

...

"...What?" Elio had been analyzing the gumshoos, trying to figure out a plan of action, when a bright light had burst out of Aleister, forcing him to shield his eyes as his attention was drawn back to his pokémon. Volkner was staring in awe as the light consumed Aleister and his body began to change. He grew taller, his legs grew longer and a bell began to form around his neck until the light dissipated, revealing a more larger cat who let out a fearsome yowl as he finished evolving.

"Aleister... Did he just evolve?" Elio asked in surprise. Gilgamesh flew out of his bag to take a look at him.

" _I think so. He looks different."_ Gilgamesh observed.

"Zzrt! That is a torracat, the fire cat pokémon and the evolved form of litten! At its throat, it bears a bell of fire. The bell rings brightly whenever this Pokémon spits fire!" Rotom explained.

"So he's a torracat now... Aleister, can you still fight?" Elio asked him. Aleister let out a determined yowl as his bell flared up, showing he was ready to battle. "Alright. Aleister, Volkner, let's-" Before Elio could give out an order, the bell on Aleister's neck flared and rang out as his mouth filled with fire and he launched himself at one of the yungoos, quickly sinking his teeth into it and shaking it violently around before throwing it down, knocking it out.

"Zzzrt! Aleister has learnt Fire Fang!" Rotom called out as the cat leapt back to where they were stood.

"Well... That's one down..." Elio muttered. "Aleister, Volkner, let's go!" Both pokémon turned to the Totem and the yungoos.

The yungoos made the first move, running past the two pokémon and choosing to attempt to jump up at Gilgamesh instead of attacking the two behind her.

" _I don't think she knows I'm not battling..."_ Gilgamesh whispered.

"Oh. Aleister, Fire Fang on the yungoos and Volkner, String Shot on the gumshoos' face!" Elio ordered. Aleister promptly spun around and launched himself at the yungoos, sinking fire coated teeth into it to quickly knock it out. Volkner reared up to get better aim to the gumshoos' eyes and spat a String Shot at him, covering his eyes and forcing him to scrabble at his eyes to try to get it off.

" _Once you've blinded them, get them to the ground. A larger foe will struggle to get back to a fighting stance once they have been toppled over. Then you take the opportunity to deal as much damage as you can."_ Elio remembered his mother's advice.

"Gil, can you help?" Elio asked.

" _I'm not going to battle, if that's what you are about to ask,"_ Gilgamesh told him.

"Wasn't going to." Elio looked at the gumshoos, which was starting to move around, flailing around in an attempt to find something to attack. "Can you tell Volkner to fire a String Shot at Aleister and have Aleister pull the string so it trips the gumshoos up?" he whispered.

" _That I can do. But you'll need to lure it to us first."_

"Got it. Hey, gumshoos! Over here!" Elio called out, causing the gumshoos to turn and begin flailing around towards Elio. Volkner quickly fired the String Shot towards Aleister, with it attaching onto the torracat's back. Aleister and Volkner ran towards the gumshoos, catching his feet in the string and making him trip and fall face first onto the ground.

"Now, use Fire Fang and Bug Bite!" The two pokémon leapt at the gumshoos and started biting as much of him as they could, earning howls from the gumshoos until he got onto all four feet and ran as fast as he could away from them, promptly running head first to the pedestal in the process.

"Zzzrt! That looked like it hurt!" Rotom squwaked.

" _It'll be dazed after that."_ Gilgamesh observed. The gumshoos pushed himself to his feet and turned around, finally pulling the String Shot off his face and glared at the group.

Elio smiled. He was beginning to enjoy the battle now. "Aleister, use Ember! Volkner, String Shot!" Both pokémon launched their attacks at the gumshoos, which jumped to the left to avoid the attacks and started charging towards them.

" _The trainer is just as useful as the pokémon. Even if they do not have a weapon to fight with, they can still lure a pokémon's attention in other ways_." Something from the book Elio had borrowed popped back in his head and gave him an idea.

"Gil, get Aleister and Volkner to go behind gumshoos and attack his legs. I'm going to distract it," Elio whispered.

" _What do you mean distract?"_ Gilgamesh asked. Elio started running towards the gumshoos, causing him to stop charging and look at him in complete bewilderment as Elio stopped right in front of him.

"Now!" Elio shouted. The gumshoos looked at him in confusion as Aleister and Volkner sank their teeth and mandibles into the gumshoos' legs with Bite and Bug Bite, earning a howl and forcing him to his knees, causing Elio to take a step back from him. "Use Ember til he falls! Volkner, use Vice Grip on a leg to keep him down!" Volkner applied the Vice Grip to the same area where he had bit him on the gumshoos' leg while Aleister's bell flared as he spat out multiple fireballs at the gumshoos, earning multiple howls of agony until at last, the gumshoos toppled over, defeated.

"We did it..." Elio whispered. Volkner chittered happily at Elio as he scuttled over to him. Aleister ran over and yowled at him, both expecting praise. "We did it... Guys, we did it!" Elio cheered as he knelt down to pet them.

" _That's it?_ " Gilgamesh asked.

"I think so. Thank you for helping, Gil," Elio said as he smiled at the honedge.

" _I didn't do much. Thank them,"_ Gilgamesh told him. Elio nodded and picked them up, cradling Aleister and putting Volkner on his shoulder.

"Thank you all. We did it!"

"What an incredible Trainer you are!" Ilima called as he walked out of the cavern. "For you to be able to defeat the Totem Pokémon that I had trained up to such a powerful state... Your use of tactics such as blinding it with String Shot were most impressive and because of them, you have cleared the trial of Ilima! You must be a phenomenal trainer! Congratulations, Elio! The z-crystal from the pedestal is yours now!" Ilima explained.

Gently moving Aleister so he was resting on one arm, Elio reached into his pocket and pulled out the crystal he had taken off the pedestal. "So this is a z-crystal..." Elio murmured as he looked at it, before throwing it into the air, catching it, and putting it back in his pocket.

"What you have just received is the Normal Z-Crystal! It is known as Normalium Z!" Ilima explained. "Now if you let a Pokémon that can use a Normal-type move hold that..." Ilima began to move his arms in various movements. "..and strike an elegant pose like this one..." Ilima moved one last time, finishing in a pose. "...then you will be able to strengthen a Normal-type move by unleashing Z-Power!" he finished explaining.

"So I can make my pokémon's moves stronger by doing those poses... Nice." Elio suddenly remembered something. "Wait, why was there two yungoos with the gumshoos?" he asked.

"The gumshoos was the Totem Pokémon. In every locale where a captain holds his or her trials, you will encounter a particularly strong pokémon, like gumshoos just now. And during battles against such pokémon, they may summon or bring along allies to shore up their offense. It's not a tactic often seen in other regions. Perhaps pokémon in Alola are simply more inclined to help one another?" Ilima wondered.

"In any case, I'll be on my way. I need to head to Melemele Meadow. Thanks for the trial, Ilima!" Elio explained as he walked back into the cavern.

...

"Is that a Z-Crystal? Wow!" The cheerful voice of a child rang out as Elio walked out of Verdant Cavern to be greeted by the sight of Hau showing off his Z-Crystal to the strangers Eilo had seen before.

"I have one too!" Elio called out as he hurried over with his pokémon in tow. Pulling out his Normilum Z, Elio proudly held it out to show to them.

"You have one too?" The child, who Elio recognised as Zossie, asked in surprise.

"Oh hey, you cleared the trial too!" Hau said. Elio nodded.

"So that is what they call a Z-Crystal! It appears that Alola's mysterous Z-Crystals are recieved for overcoming trials, is that right? I suppose it may be admirable to overcome such trials using your strength and skill, rather than relying on technology as we do." the taller one muttered as Elio and Hau put their Z-Crystals away.

"I'm Zossie! You guys are kind of awesome, you know?" the smaller one, Zossie, asked them.

"Ah... This is when you are supposed to say "Alola", is it not?" The taller one realised. "I am Dulse." Dulse introduced himself.

"And we're part of the Ultra Recon Squad, yup!" Zossie explained.

" _Ultra Recon Squad?"_ Gilgamesh asked. Elio shrugged and pulled out Volkner's and Aleister's poké balls to return them.

Zossie watched them be returned with an amazed look. "That ball thing you used there, that is some amazing bit of tech! We might just have to borrow that idea!" she said. "We're investigating all about Z-Crystals and auras and all kinds of stuff, so I'll guess we'll see you around." And with that, Dulse and Zossie walked back down Route 2 after waving goodbye.

"They seem nice." Hau noted. Elio shrugged.

"When a pair of folk walk around dressed like spacemen, it gets ya wondering what they are up to," a voice called out above them. Elio and Hau looked up to see Regina sat on the top of the cave entrance, feet swinging over the edge.

"Regina? I don't think you are allowed to be up there!" Hau called up to her.

"I know. I'm on my way down anyway," Regina called back, before standing up and walking away from where she was sat.

"Elio, Hau! How'd your trials go?" The two of them turned to see Professor Kukui walking down the path towards them.

"We both passed and got the Z-Crystals!" Hau told him.

"Congratulations! What about Regina?" Kukui asked.

"Yep! Was difficult, but I got through!" Regina called as she slid down a wall to them before walking over to them.

"...Do I want to know why you were somewhere you shouldn't be?" Kukui asked.

"Just enjoying the view, professor," she explained.

"Right..."

"Regina, where's your pokémon?" Elio asked.

"Oh, they are in their poké balls. They wanted to rest," she explained.

"Wait, where are their poké balls? You'd don't have a bag..."

"Women's secret, Elio." When he looked at her blankly, she sighed and reached into her hair bun to pull out a poké ball. "I like to travel light, live off the land, so you learn to hide things in unexpected places," she explained as she put the poké ball back in her hair. Elio nodded.

"Professor, where's Lillie?" Hau asked.

"Lillie? She's right-" the professor turned to look behind him. "-here... Lillie?" he asked as he looked around in alarm.

"You lost her?" Elio asked incrediously.

"She was right behind me when I left the meadow... She might be still there," the professor explained.

"Melemele Meadow?" Elio asked. The professor nodded. "I'm going there then. I need to go there anyway for Gil, so I'll find her when I'm in there," he explained before he hopped the barricade, showing the guide next to it his Z-Crystal when he tried to stop him.

"Why's he so worked up? She'll be fine!" Hau complained.

"She could be in danger, Hau. She already nearly got her bag stolen. That's why he's so worked up," Regina explained.

"I guess..." he mumbled.

Regina rolled her eyes at Hau. "Come on, Hau," she told him as she showed her Z-Crystal to the guide to open the barricade. "They could need our help," she said as she dragged him along by his arm.

"Ow, Regina! Stop pulling so hard! I can walk you know!" Hau's complaints began to fade as he got dragged further along the route, leaving the professor on his own. Pulling out his phone, he quickly dialled a number and put the phone to his ear as it rang out.

"Yes, Kukui?" Hala's gruff voice answered.

"They've passed Ilima's trial. Prepare for their Grand Trials."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Have fun figuring out just how long Regina's hair is for her to be able to store shrunken poké balls in her hair.
> 
> So I went about the trial a little differently. Rather than have the pokémon be called mid battle, I went with this method because I wanted the totem battles to be different in their own ways. Some will be like a traditional battle, others will have different takes on them depending on how I want to write them. The next totem battle will be Lana's, and I have something fun planned for it.
> 
> And yeah, Gilgamesh played a noncombatant role in the battle. Since it's not Elio's pokémon since Elio didn't catch it, I wanted to have it do something in the battle without actively battling since again, it's not Elio's so it doesn't have to listen to him and fight with him.
> 
> Next chapter is Melemele Meadow. Are those wedding bells I hear? Or are the chingling playing a prank on us? Don't forget to leave a favourite, follow and a review telling me what you thought!


	8. Chapter 8: Spot the Cloud

**Chapter** **8:** **Spot the Cloud**

 

 

"Pew..."

Nebby wasn't sure what to make of the place it had stumbled across.

After being cooped up in Lillie's bag for a few hours, the little creature had grown restless. So once Lillie had forgotten to zip the bag back up after retrieving a Full Restore for the professor's rockruff, which had been injured while fighting with some Team Skull Grunts, Nebby had naturally taken the chance to escape and go on an adventure in this wonderful new place Lillie had taken it to.

Unfortunately, it wasn't sure where it was. Or where Lillie was either. There was some rocks extending down from the roof above it which told it it might be in a cave of some sort. Nebby could hear the gentle lapping of some water in the distance... Could it be by the sea? Nebby wandered further into the cave, trying to find the source of the sound. It failed to notice the small pokémon which was watching it as it ventured closer and closer to her hiding spot.

It failed to see the Vine Whip which encircled it from behind when it walked up to the hiding spot.

...

"Nebby!" Lillie's cries for the creature rang out across the meadow she was stood in, desperate for some sign from the creature as to where it vanished.

Lillie had searched around the meadow, looking in as many places as she could for the wayward creature until her repels had ran out, forcing her to look from the entrance to the meadow for the creature. She hadn't had any luck finding it so far.

" _I wish the professor was here. He'd be able to find Nebby..."_ Lillie thought.

"Nebby!" She cried out again to no avail. The sounds of footsteps drew her attention behind her, only to be greeted by the sight of a heavily panting, bent over man.

"Hah... You are safe... Hah..." Elio gasped as he tried to catch his breath.

"Elio? What are you doing here?" Lillie asked in surprise.

"The professor... couldn't find you... Said you could be in the meadow... So I ran here..." Elio panted.

"Oh..." A ringtone starting jingling out of Elio's bag as Rotom and Gilgamesh floated out of his bag.

"Zzt! Call from Professor Kukui!" Rotom sqwarked.

"Answer it... Hah..." Elio told it. The icon on Rotom's screen changed to a phone icon as a timer popped up and started counting up from zero.

"Elio? Did you find her?" The professor's voice came through Rotom's speakers.

"Yeah... She's safe..." Elio panted out.

"Hi, professor," Lillie said.

"Lillie, what happened? You were behind me one minute and then you were gone, yeah! What happened?" Kukui asked her.

"Sorry, professor... Nebby escaped," she explained.

"Nebby escaped? How? Have you found it?" The professor asked.

"N-no. I ran out of Repels..."

"I'll get some more for you on the way back to the meadow, yeah? Hau and Regina are on their way to you two now, so they should be able to help you find Nebby," Kukui explained.

"It... It's fine! It can't have gone far..." Lillie mumbled.

"...Regina, ow, this really hurts! Ow, my arm... Will you stop pulling me along for two seconds?"

"The last time I stopped you tried to run back to Route 2. We're here anyway, so quit ya complaining!" Right on cue, Regina and Hau came through the entrance to the meadow, Regina still dragging along Hau by his arm as she walked into the meadow, releasing him as she went to stand by Elio and Lillie. "Howdy, Lillie, Elio. You ran the way here, didn't you?" Regina asked the man, who nodded and finally stood up straight, still breathing heavily.

"Why didn't you just call her?" Hau asked as he rubbed his arm. The look of exhaustion on Elio's face turned into one of pure annoyance as he let out a frustrated groan and facepalmed, realising what he should've done.

"Why didn't I- Oh, by Moltres' tail flame..." Elio groaned and focussed rather intently on studying the ground below him.

"Ah... That probably would have been best..." Lillie mumbled.

" _You were a bit worried, so don't beat yourself up,"_ Gilgamesh reassured Elio.

"Anyway... Can you three help her look for Nebby? It disappeared again," the professor asked.

"I'll help. Elio, Hau?" Regina asked. Elio let out a affirmative grunt and Hau nodded.

" _If we can find Lea, she might have seen where it could've gone,"_ Gilgamesh suggested. Elio nodded, and so Gilgamesh began to float towards a small area of flowers.

"Gil wants to see if someone he knows might have seen Nebby. Can you guys check the other areas for it?" Elio asked as he walked after Gilgamesh.

"Will do," Regina told him. "Come on, Hau. You take down there, I'll take over here," she explained as she gestured to a large field of flowers before walking in the opposite direction to Elio.

"...Why have I got to look through the big field of flowers?" Hau grumbled as he trekked down the slope to the field.

...

Gilgamesh looked around the flowers as he and Elio approached them. The place looked just how it was the last time it was here, but he couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong.

"Weren't they planning for a wedding a few days ago?" Gilgamesh wondered out loud.

"Excuse me!" Gilgamesh turned to see a oriocorio running up to it. "Have you seen the princess? She vanished yesterday and we haven't found her," the oriocorio explained.

"Lea's vanished?" Gilgamesh asked in alarm. The oriocorio nodded. "I haven't seen her, sorry... I'll look out for her," he told the oriocorio, who nodded and ran off into the flowers.

" _Lea's disappeared. They don't know where she has gone_ ," Gilgamesh said to Elio.

"You think she could've been captured?" Elio asked. Gilgamesh shook his body.

" _No. Melemele Meadow is a nature preservation, no trainers are allowed to capture a pokémon from here. At least, that's what Lea told me,"_ Gilgamesh explained. Elio nodded.

"So she might just be lost, then. We need to look for her and Nebby too." Gilgamesh nodded, and the duo started looking around, now searching for two pokémon.

"Should've known you'd come back." Gilgamesh turned to see the form of a floette floating towards him, a frown plastered on her face.

"Rosa. What happened with Lea?" Gilgamesh asked.

"I don't know. All I know is that she was in the meadow yesterday, and now she's not anywhere in here," Rosa explained worriedly.

"Perhaps she didn't want to get married after all..." Gilgamesh muttered.

"Ms Rosa!" A furfrou came running up to the duo. "Mr Allen hasn't returned from the cave he was searching, and no one's heard from him at all since he was sent out there!" the pokémon explained quickly.

"Him too?" Rosa turned to Gilgamesh. "Gilgamesh, there is a cave located to the south of the meadow. I must ask you to search it for any sign of Allen and Lea," she told it.

"Who's Allen?" Gilgamesh asked.

"Allen is a furfrou who is in charge of keeping the meadow safe. He has a large scar on his left ear from when he fought a gang of raticate to protect some of the younglings in the meadow. Please, we need everyone safe and sound for the wedding tomorrow," she begged Gilgamesh.

"...Your daughter most likely ran away because she didn't want to get married. In spite of that, you are still planning to go ahead with the wedding?" Gilgamesh glared at Rosa, who matched it with a fierce glare of her own.

"I don't have a choice. It's to ensure the meadow is safe from the threat of invasion," she retorted.

Gilgamesh sighed and shook his body. "...Fine, we'll search the cave for them." Gilgamesh turned and floated away from Rosa past Elio. " _We're to search a cave in the southern part of the meadow for a furfrou named Allen. The floette thinks Lea could also be in there,_ " Gilgamesh explained to Elio.

"Got it." Elio turned around and began walking after Gilgamesh, leaving Rosa to turn away and begin floating back into the flowers.

...

"Any sign of Nebby?" Lillie asked as Elio walked back towards her.

"No. We couldn't find the person Gil wanted to speak to either, but he wants to check a cave over in the back of the meadow," Elio explained.

"O-oh. Then here, you might need these." Lillie pulled out a set of revives from her bag and held them out to Elio, surprising him.

" _Take them, Elio. Better to be safe than sorry,"_ Gilgamesh told him.

"Y-yeah, thanks Lillie," he said, grabbing the revives and placing them in his bag. She nodded and smiled at him.

"Be safe in the cave... I don't want people getting hurt on my behalf," Lillie told him. Elio nodded and started walking down the slope towards the back of the meadow.

"Hey, Elio!" The man turned to see Hau emerging from the field of flowers he was searching. "Where are you going? You said you'd search up there," he asked.

"There's a cave in the back of the meadow, so I'm gonna check there for Nebby," he explained. Hau nodded in understanding, so Elio continued walking towards the back part of the meadow, Gilgamesh floating just ahead of him to look around in search of any sign of Nebby, Lea and Allen.

" _That must be the entrance to the cave..."_ Gilgamesh muttered as they walked past a few oriocorio who were staring at Gilgamesh in wonder.

"That?" Elio asked, pointing to a rather small hole hidden in the wall in front of them. It looked like Elio could just about fit through if he crawled through on his stomach...

" _I think so. I will go through first to check if it is safe,"_ Gilgamesh said, before quickly disappearing into the hole.

"Gil, is it safe?" Elio asked after a moment.

No response.

Elio sighed and pulled his bag off his back and laid it next to the entrance. He took a quick glance around to see if there were any pokémon nearby who could be a problem. Noting that there were none, Elio quickly laid down on his belly and started crawling into the hole.

...

"Gil, is it safe?" Elio's voice called through the hole, but Gilgamesh didn't hear it.

In front of him stood two weirdly dressed people. Inbetween them was Nebby and Lea.

"Lea!" Gilgamesh cried out as he floated towards the flabébé.

"Gil?" Lea turned to look at the honedge who was floating down the slope towards her. "Gil! You came back!" she cried out happily and held out her arms to embrace it as he flew into her. The two friends stayed quiet for a moment, savouring their embrace untill they broke apart.

"Lea, what are you doing here? Why aren't you in the meadow?" Gilgamesh asked.

"I didn't want to marry that man! I know it's for the good of the meadow, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life with him!" she explained.

"How odd... It seems these two know each other," Dulse observed.

"Aww, that's adorable!" Zossie squealed.

"Nebby, are you okay?" Gilgamesh asked it.

"Mama?" Nebby asked.

"Mama's outside. Elio's coming in to rescue you now," Gilgamesh explained, causing Nebby to wave its arms happily at that.

"Elio? Who's Elio?" Lea asked.

"Elio's a trainer who's helped me get here. Come on, he should be outside ths cave." Gilgamesh started floating towards the hole, Nebby following after him.

"It appears they are walking away," Dulse said.

"Why are you just letting them get away? We need to catch them to get stronger, remember?" Zossie reminded him, causing him to blink in rememberance.

"Oh, yes, we were." Dulse quickly retrieved something from his pack. "Erm... You, stop them!" Dulse called out as he threw it into the air, the strange capsule opening and releasing out a pokémon, which landed in front of them, looking at them in confusion.

"Oh, great, a furfrou. Lea, Nebby, stand back, I-" Gilgamesh was cut off when the furfrou was blasted past them by a fireball, revealing a familiar looking fire cat standing behind it, a smirk etched on his face.

"Aleister?" Gilgamesh asked.

"Gil! I asked if it was safe and you didn't respond. What happened?" Elio called out as he ran up next to Aleister. In response, Gilgamesh moved to the side to reveal Lea and Nebby behind it.

"You found them? Good work. Any sign of Allen?" he asked.

"Allen?" Lea turned to where the strange people were stood before, but they and the furfrou had vanished. _'Could the furfrou who was caught have been Mr Allen?'_ she wondered.

" _Unfortunately not,"_ Gilgamesh told him.

"That's not good then." Elio walked over to where Lea was stood and knelt down to her. "It's good we finally found you. Gil wanted to see you before you got married," Elio explained. Lea looked at Gilgamesh, then at Elio, then back at Gilgamesh, who was looking away from her awkwardly.

"Well... Yeah. I wanted to see you because... Well..." Gilgamesh was starting to wonder if this was a bad idea when she flew over to him and hugged him again.

"Thank you for coming to see me, but I'm staying here. I refuse to marry that thing," she explained as she let go.

"You know eventually, someone else will get sent in here to look for you," he reminded her.

"Then I'll find a hiding spot outside the meadow."

"Leaving the meadow is dangerous. If it wasn't for the Tapu, I would've never have gotten back here."

"I don't care! I'm not marrying that man!" Lea shouted.

"Gil?" Both pokémon turned to face Elio. "What's going on?" he asked.

" _Lea doesn't want to marry the ribombee, but I'm worried for her safety if she leaves the meadow,_ " Gilgamesh explained. Elio nodded.

"But if I don't marry him, mother says that there could be trouble for the meadow," Lea said, earning a look of alarm from Gilgamesh.

"Then... what do we do?" Gilgamesh asked. Lea looked at him in confusion, and the two stayed silent for a while, thinking.

"Gil." The honedge turned around to look at Elio, who was busy writing something down on a scrap of paper he pulled out of his bag. "Have you ever crashed a wedding before?"

...

"I haven't found it over here," Hau sighed as he walked back towards the cliff Lillie was stood on.

"Me either. Sorry, Lillie," Regina said as she walked towards her.

"I-it's fine. I'm sure-" Lillie's voice trailed off as she spotted something ahead of her. "Nebby!" she cried out as the cloud emerged from the grass, accompanied by a flabébé. Nebby let out a happy cry and flew up to her, landing easily in her outstretched arms. "You know you shouldn't try to escape like that!" she scolded the creature, who let out a sad cry.

"Hey, Lillie, this flabébé has a note attached to it," Regina said as she knelt down next to it. Taking the note gently from it, she held it out to Lillie, who was placing Nebby back in it's bag and zipping it up.

"Oh?" Lillie took the note off of her and went to look it over.

"Lillie! Did you find Nebby, yeah?" The professor's voice called out behind them, causing them all to turn around to face him.

"Professor! W-we found it," Lillie told him as they walked up towards him.

"Great. Where's Elio?" Kukui asked.

"Elio went to look in a cave in the meadow. He probably be right behind us," Hau said cheerily.

"Erm... Actually, he's going to stay in the meadow for tonight," Lillie corrected him, drawing confused looks from Hau and Regina.

"Why?"

"It's on this note that you got from that flabébé..." Lillie held it out to Regina, who took it and started reading it out loud.

"'Staying in the meadow to help Gil and his friend til tomorrow... Will make own way to Iki Town...' He sure about this?" Regina asked.

"I don't know..."

"He'll be fine! We need to get Nebby back to Iki Town for safety," Hau reminded them. Regina glared at him, but Lillie nodded.

"Hau's right. I'm sure he'll call us if he needs help," Lillie reassured them. Regina sighed, but nodded.

"Yeah, he should be fine. Come on, Hau and Regina have their Grand Trials to go through next," Kukui explained eagerly, gesturing to them to get going.

"Grand Trial? Woo! I'm gonna beat Tutu for sure!" Hau cheered as he sped off out of the meadow.

"That man..." Regina sighed as she set off walking alongside the professor. Lillie took one last look around the meadow before walking out after them.

_Please be safe, Elio,_ Lillie thought as she left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: So, slight change of plans. The wedding crashing will be next chapter, with the Grand Trial in the chapter after that. The reason for this is because I want to get this chapter done because I'm gonna be putting this story on hiatus until I can get the next bulk of chapters written. I severely underestimated how draining uni would be, and the recent spambot attacks on FFN cut into the time I could've spent writing as I was busy making a new profile that was safe from the bots.
> 
> I am sorry for the hiatus, but I will return to this fic. Elio's story will continue on. In the meanwhile, I highly recommend you check out my other stories on here, as well as Pokémon Radiant Sun by FlygonNick, the fic that inspired me to write this story as well as Pokémon: The Ultra Adventure by SonicTitanic23, a fic by a friend of mine who helps me with making sure Cybersun is as good as it can be.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Be sure to let me know what you thought!


	9. Update

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Ulysses here. Apologies for the lack of movement in regards to Cybersun, I've been swamped with uni work, so I'm taking some time before class to give you an update.
> 
> Cybersun is still alive. It might not be in this form, but it will survive. I'm currently running through ideas as to how to get this to get moving again, since I have loads of ideas for plot, events, etc, but I'm no longer in the mindset I was when I started this version, so I've had no motivation to actually write anything for it. Current ideas include jumping back to the original version of Cybersun that started at the Rainbow Rocket arc and restarting it as a episodic thing where a character tells another character about the story of Elio Solaris. If Cybersun vanishes from FFN and AO3, know that it's getting restarted and it will return eventually.
> 
> With that said, I'm more than happy to present a small tidbit for an element of Cybersun that is yet to be introduced. Without further ado...

"He who cannot let go of his past will burn his future..."

Elio stared at the man stood in front of him, trying to acertain his appearance from beneath his hood. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the acoylte of the creator, who was forgotten by all but those from where He rests. I am his sword, his shield, his message to the world." The hooded man snapped the book in his hand shut, and looked up at Elio, crimson eyes piercing through him as he began to shrink backwards in alarm.

"I am Jack. I know of you, Elio Solaris."

" _How does he know you?_ " Gilgamesh asked him.

"I don't know..." Elio whispered, taking another step back in from the strange man.

"I know everything. Your mother, Marida. Your father, Aleister." Jack pointed past Elio, at the route behind him.

"And I know of Cosmog. I know she has it."

 


End file.
